No dangerous arsenic levels in NYCHA housing project — testing company admits results were wrong, NYC officials say

Arsenic is not a danger in the water pouring from taps at the Jacob Riis Houses in the East Village, city officials said Friday — after the lab that reported unsafe levels of the toxic chemical admitted it goofed and issued a full retraction of its finding.

Environmental Monitoring and Technologies — the Illinois-based firm hired to conduct the tests — said in a statement that updated tests only found “trace levels” of arsenic that were “well below” the federal threshold considered dangerous.

The company said its original results — which scared residents of the NYCHA project — were “incorrect,” according to Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mayor Adams.

On top of that, Levy said, the company “has now admitted to being the ones that introduced arsenic into the samples, leading to the false results.”

Levy appeared to be referring to a passage in the lab’s retraction that referenced a test for silver in the water at Riis. The test for the presence of silver “required digestion and dilutions” which “introduced trace levels of arsenic and a dilution factor correction.”

The suspected arsenic discovery at Riis, which was first reported by the news organization The City on Sept. 2, led Adams to distribute bottled water there several nights this and last week.

The City’s initial report held that NYCHA officials had known about the arsenic for two weeks without alerting the public. NYCHA officials vehemently disputed that timeline.

Still, Environmental Monitoring and Technologies’ statement said its first positive test for arsenic was reported Aug. 26 — a week before NYCHA and Adams’ office alerted Riis residents.

“We need a full investigation into how this happened,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine told the Daily News on Friday. “And the people who screwed this up need to be held accountable.”

For days, NYCHA and the city have also advised that residents avoid drinking tap water there.

On Thursday, the city declared the housing complex arsenic-free, but continued advising against using the water there, citing a weeks-old test that found potential traces of Legionella bacteria.

The city’s advisory against drinking the tap water at Riis remained in place Friday as well.

“We continue to approach the situation with an extreme level of care, which is why, earlier this week, we initiated a number of additional tests through LiRo Environmental,” another lab company, Levy said.

LiRo Environmental’s tests for “typical contaminants” more likely to be in the water “have now come back negative,” Levy said.

On Saturday, the city expects to have results for less likely taints to the water, called “non-typical contaminants,” Levy said.

“In the meantime, out of an abundance of caution, we are continuing to ask Riis Houses residents not to drink or cook with the water in their buildings until these final test results are returned and analyzed,” the mayor’s spokesman said.

The city is continuing its distribution of bottled water there as well, Levy noted.

Environmental Monitoring and Technologies’ apparent bungling could lead to repercussions for the company. Levy said that the city “intends to pursue all available legal options on behalf of the residents of Riis Houses.”

The company did not respond to messages.

Brooklyn-based lawyer Sanford Rubenstein’s firm plans to pursue a class action lawsuit against NYCHA.

In a notice of claim filed with the city Comptroller, Rebecca Perkins, 34, who lives at Riis with her three kids, seeks $10 million in compensation. Rubenstein says he represents 35 Jacob Riis Houses residents.

The notice of claim — a prelude to a possible lawsuit — demands that NYCHA create a fund to pay for testing of the water supply and compensate residents who drank water there.

”I want justice because I don’t feel like it’s fair the way they are treating us,” Perkins said. “We’re human beings, and almost a whole week has gone by and we still don’t know … when it’ll be over.”

Perkins’ lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, said that despite the retracted tests, he believes he still has a case.

“Everything remains murky,” Rubenstein said. It is actionable for a victim to recover damages for the fear of getting disease, and certainly there are a lot of people at risk who fear getting sick as a result of the reports of arsenic and legionella found in the water.”

The City Department of Law declined to comment.