DEP Workers Still 'Essential' After Colleague's Coronavirus Death

CORONA, QUEENS — The night of April 1, a mailroom supervisor for the city's Department of Environmental Protection died after contracting the new coronavirus.

The following morning, his former coworkers in the Bureau of Customer Services obliviously shuffled into work at the agency's towering headquarters in Corona, where an onslaught of COVID-19 cases has given the Queens neighborhood a grim title as the epicenter of New York City's pandemic.

But word passed quickly, and soon everyone seemed to know about the death of the man once known for his big smile and seemingly endless supply of superhero t-shirts, as Commissioner Vincent Sapienza would later refer to him in an email to agency employees.

Workers on his former floor started panicking, according to a DEP employee who spoke to Patch on the condition of anonymity. One employee, who has an underlying respiratory condition, burst into tears. The agency sent them home shortly after, but asked them to report back to work on Monday.

"There’s a lot of people freaking out on the seventh floor right now,” another person told Patch on Thursday. “They’re risking it all. They’re risking their very lives, the pensions they’ve worked towards, everything.”

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On the seventh floor of the Department of Environmental Protection's office building at 59-17 Junction Blvd., employees in the Bureau of Customer Services have been working throughout the pandemic, because the agency classified them as essential workers not subject to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's stay-at-home order.

"DEP’s employees provide critical public health services for New York City, including delivering a reliable supply of high quality drinking water and collecting and treating wastewater, both important elements to the City’s response to COVID-19," agency spokesperson Ted Timbers said in an emailed statement to Patch.

At least seven Department of Environmental Protection employees in the 20-story building have tested positive for the coronavirus, Timbers told THE CITY, which also reported on the situation — but other city agencies and private companies have offices there, workers told Patch, so the total number of cases building-wide could be even higher.

Five DEP workers, who all asked for anonymity because they were afraid of retaliation, told Patch that many of them are older and have underlying conditions that make them more vulnerable to falling seriously ill — or dying — if they get the virus. Several of them said they've never been considered essential before, whether during snowstorms or Hurricane Sandy.

"Every emergency presents different challenges and while a job function may be considered non-essential for a day or two, such as during a snowstorm or hurricane, it can become essential when the emergency lasts for weeks or months," Timbers, the DEP spokesperson, said.

Workers told Patch they suspect they're still working because their unit helps rake in money for the agency: In the mailroom and a centralized scanning department, they receive and scan water bills for record-keeping, which then enables call center workers to deal with any disputed bills.

"We bring in the money, so maybe that’s why they don’t really want to close down," one of the workers told Patch. "Water bills have to go out, and people call in.”

Meanwhile, other DEP employees have gotten laptops and been permitted to work from home. Those working from home include the higher-ranking employees who supervise the Bureau of Customer Services, workers told Patch.

A DEP worker with an underlying condition put it like this: “What kind of general goes off to battle and they’re sitting on their front porch giving instructions through their radio to the front line?”

Workers in the mailroom recently started an alternating schedule, but they told Patch they still work in close quarters that flout social distancing guidelines, which say people should stay at least six feet apart from one another; a photograph obtained by THE CITY shows the cramped conditions on the workers' floor.

The DEP spokesperson said employee safety is the agency's "number one priority" and that work stations for essential employees were separate by at least six feet two weeks ago, adding that the photo published by THE CITY "does not reflect this."

Workers have asked for protective gear, like masks and gloves, but have yet to receive any. One worker said the agency pledged to provide protective equipment starting Monday and will check employees' temperature for a fever before they can head upstairs to their offices.

Still, all the workers who spoke to Patch said they're scared they are putting themselves and others at risk. Some DEP workers who have underlying health conditions are using the personal leave days they've accumulated so they can avoid going to work.

Timbers, the agency spokesperson, said older workers or those with pre-existing conditions can request a reasonable accommodation, but one such employee told Patch that their request went unanswered. (The spokesperson said requests are reviewed "expeditiously" and that the agency will typically respond within 72 hours.)

In contrast, at the city's Board of Elections, all employees who are over 60 or have underlying health conditions have been authorized to work from home, according to a NY1 reporter.

"I pray before I leave my house," one DEP employee told Patch. “I pray for my kids, I pray for the workers on the job, I pray for everybody.”

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