NYC&#39;s Charming Water Towers Are Actually Bacteria-Filled
HorrorshowsS  Ah, New York—the sparkling skyline! The bustling
streets! The... poop-filled water tanks? According to a new
report from The New York Times, the city's roughly 17,000 water
tanks are totally unsanitary and widely unregulated.  First of
all: Why does NYC still use water tanks? The answer is
relatively simple: Many buildings taller than six or seven
stories need their own method of supplying water pressure to the
floors below. There are thus nearly 20,000 of these tanks in the
city, supplying drinking water to hundreds of thousands of
people.  However, perhaps because of their ubiquity and
permanence, it turns out the tanks have been relatively immune
from safety inspections.  The New York Times took samples from
water tanks in 12 buildings, and eight of them tested positive
for coliform—an indicator for the presence of "pathogenic
organisms of fecal origin." Five also came back positive with E.
coli. Some tanks aren't actually closed to