2010 - 2018, NYC Housing Authority Challenged 95% Of Tests Showing Toxic Lead Levels In Apartments

[hatrack]

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For at least two decades, almost every time a child in its apartments tested positive for high lead levels, Nycha launched a counteroffensive, city records show. From 2010 through July of this year, the agency challenged 95 percent of the orders it received from the Health Department to remove lead detected in Nycha apartments. Private landlords almost never contest a finding of lead; they did so in only 4 percent of the 5,000 orders they received over the same period, records show.

Nycha’s strategy often worked. The Health Department backed down in 158 of 211 cases in public housing after the authority challenged its finding, the data shows. A Health Department spokesman said that it rescinded its orders because it became convinced that its initial test was a false positive.

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In the summer of 2012, the authority stopped making its annual maintenance rounds entirely, in response to a federal rule change. The decision to stop those apartment inspections came under former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The authority was eager to direct its maintenance workers to conduct repairs rather than perform so many inspections, two former officials said, to clear a ballooning backlog of open work orders, often called tickets.

“There was such pressure to get tickets completed,” said Paul D’Ambrosi, a former paint inspector who retired in 2012. Officials are still unsure when lead inspections were last done, The Times found.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/nyregion/nycha-lead-paint.html

[BlueWI]

1. Thanks for the post!

Good to know this detail about Bloomberg's record.