City Health Department inspectors made so many mistakes in writing violations for building cooling towers that 90 percent of those that were challenged were tossed at administrative trials last year, it was reported Wednesday.
Of more than 27,000 summonses the department handed out in 2017 related to the towers — where bacteria that cause the pneumonia-like Legionnaires’ disease can grow — about 15,700 were challenged, according to an analysis by WNYC radio and the Gothamist website.
Of those, some 14,000 cases were dismissed, the review found.
The sloppy citations stemmed in part from confusion about the rules covering the towers, which were instituted in 2015 after a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in the South Bronx infected 138 people.
Department officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.