A cooling tower at a Queens NYPD precinct has tested positive for a trace level of Legionella, the bacteria linked to the potentially fatal Legionnaires’ disease, city health officials said Tuesday.
The finding came after testing at the 112th Precinct station house on a busy stretch of Forest Hills detected a low concentration of the bacteria in the air-conditioning tower. Officials and law-enforcement sources said the system was promptly drained and disinfected.
Sources described the result as a “Level 2” detection — a small amount considered unlikely to pose a threat and not high enough under state law to require notifying building occupants.
Even so, NYPD officials alerted officers assigned to the precinct as a precaution. Leaders of the Sergeants Benevolent Association also advised members to seek medical care immediately if they experienced symptoms, according to a memo obtained by The Post.
“At this time, no patients with confirmed Legionnaires’ disease have reported working at the 112th Precinct and there are no concerns for the public health or the NYPD’s workforce related to the cooling tower at this location,” a city Health Department representative said.
“There is no risk to public health or the workforce there and no one has gotten sick. It is also safe to drink the water and shower there.”
The low-level positive test — and the precautionary notice that followed — surfaced as a recent Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which left 11 people dead, has begun to subside.
That outbreak triggered sharp criticism of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and city health officials, with detractors accusing the administration of moving too slowly to identify the dangerous bacteria and contain its spread.
Building owners are required under city law to test cooling towers where the bacteria can fester and thrive during hot summer weather every 31 days.
The Queens precinct — which serves Forest Hills and Rego Park — on Austin Street had its air-conditioning tower test results come in Sept. 2, yielding a low positive, sources said.
A separate precinct tower for drinking and shower water tested negative for the insidious microbes, the sources said.
The affected tower was cleaned last week, officials said.
“NYPD will collect another sample to validate that their action was effective,” the health department spokesperson said. “These actions follow our regulations and is a textbook example of how they are designed to proactively monitor and identify the presence of bacteria growing inside cooling towers and mitigate it before it becomes a risk.”
— Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
