The New York City Housing Authority’s handwritten “Annual Roof Tank Inspection Reports” chronicle a history of tainted drinking water tanks that the housing agency failed to report to city health officials, according to an examination of hundreds of internal NYCHA documents and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene records.
Indeed, tank cleaners that currently clean and inspect the tanks have complained about NYCHA’s tanks to this reporter for years.
“Whenever we find a bird in the tank, 9 times out of 10, it’s NYCHA,” said a tank company employee in 2014, who requested anonymity to speak without authorization.
She says this happens two or three times a month in her third floor apartment at the Chelsea Houses Addition, a NYCHA building for elderly tenants.
“They always claim to be cleaning the water in that tower,” Santos said of the rooftop drinking water tank on her building.
A handwritten note on an internal NYCHA inspection report from 2017 reads: “Birds inside the tank, flat door need to be replaced.” City & State obtained hundreds of internal NYCHA water tank inspection forms through a records request with the agency.
The city health department did not directly answer questions from City & State about whether the discrepancies between the contamination that tank cleaners saw in the tanks and the spotless inspection reports NYCHA filed with the health department were a concern or a violation of any laws or regulations.
Even though it seems to them that NYCHA has been increasing the number of repairs it approves, many times, the next time they see the tank is a year later and it still has the same problems.
In 2017, birds were again found in the water supply tank, according to an inspection report.
From the available records, it appears two more years went by before NYCHA inspected that tank and those 2016 and 2017 reports show no structural or sanitary problems whatsoever.