Tell New Yorkers Where COVID Lurks In Sewers, Manhattan BP Says

NEW YORK, NY — For months, New York has been testing its sewage systems for traces of COVID-19, but one elected official wants the city to be more forthcoming about where it's finding the virus.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer successfully pushed the city last spring to start taking samples from its 14 wastewater treatment plants — a method that can help track the spread of the virus in hundreds of thousands of people at a time.

Now, Brewer says the city should post that information publicly on its online data portal, arguing that it would help communities respond more quickly to local outbreaks.

"Making wastewater testing data publicly available will further strengthen citywide efforts to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, since stakeholders such as sustainability experts, academic researchers, the civic tech community, and community healthcare providers will then have the opportunity to all play a role in analyzing and taking action based on data rooted in science," Brewer wrote in a March 5 letter to the Department of Environmental Protection.

Public data is all the more important now that the city is host to a number of virus variants, including one that likely arose in Washington Heights, one expert said.

"That New York City is a breeding ground for new variants that spread faster and against which vaccines are less effective ... means we urgently need as much wastewater data as we can get, at the treatment plants and more locally, so that our opening and closing decisions are most timely, accurate, and life-saving," Maggie Clarke, a member of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board, said in a news release.

Brewer's letter follows a City Council bill introduced last month that likewise sought to force the city to make sewage testing data public.

A DEP spokesperson said the city was reviewing Brewer's letter and planned to respond.

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