Authorities say Lab Company that falsely reported high arsenic levels in water samples at Jacob Riis Houses in NYC was not authorized to work in public housing

From [HERE] The lab company that falsely reported high arsenic levels in water samples at Jacob Riis Houses in Manhattan’s East Side was not authorized to work in New York, public housing officials said.

NYCHA’s interim CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt made the revelation at a heated New York City Council hearing on Friday on the arsenic scare that disrupted the lives of the complex’s residents earlier this month. She told members at the joint housing and oversight committee hearing that Illinois-based Environmental Monitoring and Technologies (EMT) had been hired by LiquiTech to test the water at the sprawling complex.

“We did not previously choose EMT and we will not allow EMT to be used again,” NYCHA Chief Operating Officer Eva Trimble said at the hearing. According to Trimble, LiquiTech violated its contract with the public housing authority for picking a lab company not certified to perform work in New York. Officials on Friday could not say why LiquiTech chose the lab. A review of state records show EMT is not listed as certified to perform testing in New York.

Neither EMT or LiquiTech responded to requests for comment as of Friday night.

The hearing marked the first time officials testified under oath about the water scare. Bova-Hiatt presented a timeline of the events, beginning with a complaint of cloudy water on May 1st, months earlier than previously reported by NYCHA.

Water samples were collected and tested throughout August, but it wasn’t until September 2nd that tenants were told of the supposed elevated levels of arsenic, an element that can cause cancer.

For over a week, residents were advised to not drink or cook with their tap water. Then, on September 9th, NYCHA announced the test results were incorrect, and that the testing company inserted arsenic into its samples. The city conducted its own testing after the lab company retracted its results and found the water to be safe to drink.

City Council members grilled the officials on the confusing sequence of events, including why residents were not immediately told about what was believed to be undrinkable water. Bova-Hiatt said NYCHA wanted to be sure before sounding the alarm based on the results of just one test, and ordered more testing, relying on EMT to produce a second set of results. Suspicious of the unusual results, NYCHA ultimately hired another testing company to perform the work, Trimble said. [MORE]