Audit & Investigation Environmental Protection, Department Of

Audit Report On The Department Of Environmental Protection’s Handling Of Fire Hydrant Inspections And Repairs

June 30, 2020 | ME19-107A

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

The objective of this audit was to determine whether the New York City (City) Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP’s) fire hydrant inspection and repair responsibilities are handled in a timely and effective manner.

DEP’s Bureau of Water and Sewer Operations (BWSO) is responsible for, among other things, operating and maintaining the City’s water and sewer systems, endeavoring to ensure that there is sufficient water for fire protection, and responding to fire hydrant service requests. DEP’s records indicate that as of June 30, 2019, there were 109,586 DEP fire hydrants across the City.

The fire hydrant inspection process involves both semi-annual inspections of all City hydrants by the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), and DEP inspections made in response to Customer Service Requests (CSRs) that BWSO receives, mainly through the City’s 311 Customer Service Center. The inspection results are entered into DEP’s Infor Public Sector (IPS) computer system.^[1] If the results of FDNY or DEP inspections indicate that repairs are necessary, IPS automatically generates and electronically forwards work orders to DEP’s Repair Yards in the boroughs where the hydrants are located. After each repair is completed, Repair Yard staff manually update the information in IPS.

The FDNY designates fire hydrants as “priority hydrants” where they are near hospitals, day care centers, schools, senior-citizen housing, or other such facilities or large places of public assembly, or are the only hydrant on a block. Where the FDNY has designated a hydrant a priority hydrant, and that hydrant is inoperative, DEP refers to the repair as a “priority hydrant repair.” Where the FDNY has designated a hydrant a priority hydrant, but that hydrant is operable, yet in need of some repair, DEP identifies the repair as a “non-priority repair.” Similarly, DEP refers to the repair of an operative or inoperative non-priority hydrant as a “non-priority repair.”

According to DEP, during Fiscal Year 2019, BWSO received 18,335 unique CSRs and initiated 27,641 unique hydrant-repair work orders based on FDNY and DEP inspections. DEP reported in the Fiscal Year 2019 Mayor’s Management Report (MMR) that inoperative priority hydrants were repaired in an average of 2.5 days.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

DEP adequately handled its fire hydrant inspection and repair responsibilities in Fiscal Year 2019. However, improvements are needed. During Fiscal Year 2019, DEP had no timeliness standards in place for the so-called “non-priority” hydrant repairs. Although during the audit DEP set timeliness standards for 4 “non-priority” hydrant repair activities for Fiscal Year 2020, the agency still lacks timeliness standards for 31 other types of activities that encompass more than half of its hydrant-repair work. In addition, since DEP’s recently adopted timeliness standards set only modest goals, we question whether the new repair goals represent the optimum balance of public safety concerns and available resources.

DEP also did not consistently meet the timeliness standards that were in place for inspections and priority hydrant repairs. Moreover, DEP relied entirely on the FDNY to identify priority hydrants even though, in some instances, only DEP would have been in the position to know that a hydrant met the priority criteria. Further, DEP needs to institute a policy of documented supervisory verification of hydrant inspections and repairs to provide greater assurance that the work its crews perform is completed appropriately and as reported. DEP also needs to improve its communications with the FDNY to help FDNY more clearly identify the problems, priority, and locations of the fire hydrants that FDNY determines need repair. Finally, DEP needs to enhance its IPS data entry controls to improve the reliability of its IPS data, and needs to improve its support for the percentage of hydrants it deems inoperative, a performance indicator DEP reports in the MMR.

Audit Recommendations

To address the issues raised by this audit, we made 14 recommendations, including the following:

DEP should develop written timeliness standards for the 31 fire-hydrant-related repair activities currently without such standards.
DEP should ensure that it inspects fire hydrants in response to CSRs in accordance with its timeliness standards.
DEP should measure the timeliness of all of its hydrant repair activities, including the 31 work activities that it does not currently measure, and seek ways to improve the timeliness of its repairs, especially those involving inoperative fire hydrants.
DEP should identify priority hydrants during its CSR inspections that have not been so identified by FDNY to supplement the FDNY’s determinations.
DEP should require crew supervisors to document the results of their field reviews of the fire hydrant inspections and repairs the work crews perform.
DEP should provide FDNY with a comprehensive set of written instructions on inspecting fire hydrants and on properly recording the problems, locations, and priority of the fire hydrants that FDNY identifies as needing repairs.

Agency Response

In its response, DEP generally agreed with the audit’s findings and recommendations.

Endnotes

[1] IPS is an information management system DEP uses to track service requests, inspections, and work orders related to fire hydrants and other DEP assets.