City Councilor Erin Murphy has filed a hearing order to look into whether street cleaning equipment used in the area of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue is spreading infectious diseases to other parts of Boston.

Murphy said the city uses the same cleaning equipment on Southampton, Atkinson and Topeka streets as it does in other neighborhoods, including the South End, Back Bay, Beacon Hill and Bay Village.

This creates the potential for contamination traveling from Mass and Cass to those other neighborhoods, Murphy said. She plans to discuss the hearing request at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

“It’s scary what they’re finding and they’re using the same equipment,” Murphy told the Herald. “It’s a public health crisis.”

Murphy said she is not concerned with needles being dragged from Mass and Cass, where open-air drug dealing and homeless encampments are rampant, via the street cleaning equipment.

Rather, her focus is on concerns she and other lawmakers raised in a letter sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The group fears untreated stormwater runoff from the needle-strewn area is polluting Boston Harbor.

“We have recently learned that catch basins in the area known as Mass and Cass dump right out into Boston Harbor via the Fort Point Channel without any filtration,” the lawmakers stated in a letter previously reported by the Herald.

The risk, in part, prompted the city to apply for a grant from the CDC to monitor for communicable diseases in that runoff. Murphy also cited the latest ‘D’ and ‘F’ grades the MWRA gave the Fort Point Channel for fecal matter and bacteria in the water.

Murphy, as part of her order, is calling for the city to immediately cease using the same street cleaning equipment, and begin using specialized equipment for the area sometimes referred to as Methadone Mile.

“There’s definitely a need,” she said. “The trash that’s picked up there on a daily basis — you have to pick it up three times a day to keep up with it.”

The city’s public works department did not refute Murphy’s assertions, but said the risk of spreading infectious diseases with street cleaning equipment is “extremely low.”

“The Boston Public Works Department uses a combination of in-house and contractor sweepers to keep all our neighborhood streets clean and sanitary,” a department spokesperson said.

“As we continue to deliver an array of core city services that keep our city vibrant and thriving, city health officials agree that any infectious disease hazards related to the use of our operating equipment is extremely low.”

The Boston Public Health Commission said it was reviewing the hearing order.