Residents of a New York City public housing complex should avoid drinking or cooking with water from their taps after initial samples revealed unsafe levels of arsenic, Mayor Eric Adams’ office said.
(Bloomberg) — Residents of a New York City public housing complex should avoid drinking or cooking with water from their taps after initial samples revealed unsafe levels of arsenic, Mayor Eric Adams’ office said.
Adams stopped by the Jacob Riis Houses in the East Village on Friday to meet with tenants, who had complained of cloudy water. The complex, run by the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, is home to more than 2,500 people.
Preliminary test results earlier this week showed levels of arsenic higher than federal standard, though subsequent tests Saturday didn’t detect the toxin in the water source entering the building, the mayor’s office said in an email Sunday.
“While preliminary retesting results showed arsenic levels higher than the federal standard for drinking water, new results yesterday from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection did not detect arsenic from the water source entering the building,” a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said in the statement.
Testing is continuing, the spokesperson said. “Out of an abundance of caution, however, we are advising Riis Houses residents not to drink or cook with the water in their buildings, and we are providing clean water for anyone who needs it.”
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said on Twitter that no arsenic contamination has been found in the surrounding neighborhood, and that the city’s overall water supply “remains extremely safe to drink.”
Arsenic is a chemical element that occurs in the earth’s mineral deposits and dissolves in groundwater. Consumption of arsenic in water can cause cancer and other illnesses, according to public health experts. The Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization agree on a maximum level of 10 parts per billion of arsenic in drinking water.
New York City’s public housing units — which house some 400,000 people across all five boroughs — have for years been plagued by mold, lead paint, vermin and heat outages. In 2018, the federal government sued NYCHA alleging the 80-year-old authority violated basic federal heath and safety regulations, including protecting children from toxic lead paint.
The reports of the unsafe drinking water at the Riis houses came the same day that New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams released a new report, “How the Other Half Lives in Public Housing,” taking aim at NYCHA for “deplorable” conditions. The report’s title pays homage to Jacob Riis, the journalist and reformer whose book “How the Other Half Lives” documented the squalid living conditions of city slums in the 1880s.
“NYCHA has long been the city’s worst landlord,” Williams said of the arsenic detection. “No one can truly be surprised by these revelations anymore
A NYCHA spokesperson didn’t comment directly on the situation at the Riis houses and referred Bloomberg to the mayor’s office.
Top NYCHA managers first learned of test results showing traces of arsenic about two weeks ago, the nonprofit news organization The City reported.
(Updates with new testing results from the mayor’s office.)
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