The tap water at the Jacob Riis Houses is "clear for drinking again" after lab results showed arsenic in the water, the press secretary for Mayor Eric Adams, Fabien Levy, said on Twitter Saturday afternoon just after 12:30 p.m.

Levy also posted a video of Adams and the city's health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, drinking water from the East Village NYCHA complex.

In a statement released Saturday afternoon just after 1 p.m., Adams said after reviewing the final test results, the water is "well within EPA drinking water quality standards."

"We can confidently say the water at Riis Houses is and has been free of any discernible amount of arsenic since the initial tests were initiated in August and meets EPA standards," Adams said. "I would not ask the residents of Riis Houses to do anything I wouldn’t do, which is why I have already stopped by Riis Houses and drank the water myself."

Saturday's update came one day after Environmental Monitoring and Technologies, the lab that claimed that there was arsenic in the water at the Jacob Riis Houses, issued a retraction on Friday. Their initial results were incorrect and they were the ones that introduced arsenic to the water samples, a City Hall spokesman and the company itself said in separate statements.

The stunning turn of events comes a week after the city said arsenic was discovered in the water at the complex.

"NYCHA nor any other city agency will test water through Environmental Monitoring and Technologies any longer, and the city intends to pursue all available legal options on behalf of the residents of Riis Houses and will look for how we can reimburse residents for costs incurred over the last week," Adams said in a statement Saturday.

What You Need To Know

  • The tap water at the Jacob Riis Houses is "clear for drinking again," the press secretary for Mayor Eric Adams, Fabien Levy, said on Twitter Saturday afternoon

  • Test results that showed arsenic have been retracted by the company that did the sampling

  • The city is waiting for tests expected to come back Friday night before giving the all clear to residents

The company acknowledged the incorrect results in a separate statement, saying it had begun an internal investigation into the original results earlier this week. 

"Following a thorough internal audit on the reported data, the lab found that the results for arsenic reported on August 26, 2022 and September 1, 2022 were incorrect,” Environmental Monitoring and Technologies said in a statement. 

The company said trace levels of arsenic were added to the samples as part of the testing process. 

Over 2,600 people live at the Jacob Riis Houses in Manhattan, one of NYCHA's biggest developments.

Levy said the company's new test results match a separate test the mayor’s office conducted with LiRo. 

"We have now tested more than 140 points — both at the source and at the point of delivery — and we can confidently say the water at Riis Houses is and has been free of any discernible amount of arsenic since the initial tests were initiated in August," he wrote in a statement.

In Saturday's statement, Adams also addressed the possible presence of Legionella bacteria in NYCHA water.

"In regard to the Legionella bacteria reported earlier this week, we suspect these results are inaccurate. As public health experts have noted, Legionnaires Disease cannot be contracted by drinking water," Adams said. "Additionally, we are actively reviewing our Legionella surveillance data, and have found no reported or confirmed cases of Legionnaires Disease at Riis Houses over the last 12 months."

Residents at the Jacob Riis Houses say they are furious.

For a week, the residents were unable to use their tap water.

Environmental Monitoring and Technologies did not respond to a request for comment and the city spokesperson did not elaborate when asked by NY1 what he meant by the statement.

Across the street from the Jacob Riis Houses is P.S. 034 Franklin D. Roosevelt, where its auditorium was full of residents on Friday night.

Tempers flared, as speakers from the city had to repeatedly stop talking due to angry residents draining them out.

“We are deeply, deeply apologetic that you are still in a state of limbo,” said Jessica Katz, who works for the city.

She shared with the full auditorium that Environmental Monitoring and Technologies “retract all arsenic results produced on August 26, 2022 and September 1, 2022,” according to a document released by the company.

“There is no arsenic at Riis and there never was,” Katz said.

To others who live in the NYCHA housing, it doesn’t matter when they’re allowed to drink their tap water again. They simply said they don’t trust it.

A resident named Linda showed NY1 a photo she said she took earlier on Friday of the water from the sink, with what appears to be foam floating on the surface.

She said she will not drink the tap water.

City leaders acknowledge they have work to do to restore trust. A city spokesperson said they are looking at potential legal action against Environmental Monitoring and Technologies.

At the meeting, a NYCHA representative said they’re looking at reimbursing residents for their loss of water.

The city said it will make public the test results taken by Environmental Monitoring and Technologies.

Earlier this week, NY1 filed a FOIA request for those documents, with some residents questioning how quickly the city informed them about the tests detecting arsenic in their water.

The city has maintained it alerted residents as soon as they knew. The statement from Environmental Monitoring and Technologies stated testing was done on Aug. 26 and Sept. 1.

The city told residents not to drink their tap water on Sept. 2, a week after the first samples were taken.

The city has been providing bottled water to residents on site all week.