March 13, 2016– Hoosick Falls, NY – Governor Andrew Cuomo meets with Hoosick Falls officials and other state officials to tour the Village of Hoosick Falls water treatment plant and the new granulated activated carbon filtration that was installed in 2016 to filter contaminated water. Five years after the EPA discovered high levels of PFOAs in the Hoosick Falls water supply, environmental activists and some lawmakers are saying the law signed in the wake of the Hoosick Falls water crisis was never fully implemented and citizens in other communities may be at risk.
In 2015, residents of Hoosick Falls, a village located in Rensselaer County, were informed by the Environmental Protection Agency that their drinking water was unsafe to drink due to PFOA contamination.
For years, Hoosick Falls residents were in the dark about the cancer-causing chemical in their drinking water. A local company, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics used perfluorooctanoic acid to produce non-stick materials for consumer, industrial and commercial products, and the chemical seeped into the village’s water supply.
Because the Hoosick Falls water system serves fewer than 10,000 people, the village was not required to test for a suite of unregulated contaminants, which included PFOA, in 2013. Had testing been required, Hoosick Falls residents would have been alerted to and protected from PFOA much earlier.
A legal loophole, which only required the testing of unregulated contaminants for municipalities that have populations of more than 10,000 people, caused the contamination to go unmonitored for years.
According to the 2010 Census, the population in Hoosick Falls was 6,924, approximately 3,000 people short of the threshold to require testing for clean drinking water that would have exposed the PFOA contamination.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in an effort to eliminate the population requirement to test for unregulated contaminants, signed the Emerging Contaminant Monitoring Act in 2017.
However, Hoosick Falls residents have yet to see justice in the form of guaranteed clean drinking water, which some have attributed to a lack of urgency on the part of the New York State Department of Health.
According to the New York State DOH website, the responses to local water supply concerns in Hoosick Falls included both consultation and advice to address community water supply issues, testing for drinking water in public and private water supplies and activities to characterize and address exposures. The DOH also notes that a Granulated activated carbon filtration system been installed on the Petersburgh municipal public water system that is effectively removing PFOA from water before it enters the system. According to the DOH, multiple and repeated samples from the water supply shows non-detectable levels of PFOA.
In a comment issued to the Legislative Gazette, Department of Health spokesperson Erin Silk said the maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) in New York are already among the most strict in the nation for drinking water — at 1 part per billion for 1,4-dioxane, and 10 parts per trillion, each, for PFOA and PFOS.
“These regulations – created under the guidance of the Drinking Water Quality Council – set protective, achievable and enforceable standards for emerging contaminants and were subject to extensive public comment. The Department does not comment on pending legislation,” Silk said.
However, village residents, environmental advocates, and now some state lawmakers are adamant that the work is far from over in order to protect drinking water for New Yorkers.
Groups like Environmental Advocates of New York and the New York Public Interest Research Group are making a push for the state Health Department to implement the law signed in 2017.
Approximately 2,000 small water systems have not been tested for unregulated contaminants like strontium, chromium-6, or vanadium. 2.5 million New Yorkers still don’t know if there are chemicals in their water that could make them sick.
In a recent press release by Environmental Advocates, one resident of Hoosick Falls, Loreen Hackett said that because PFOA is not a “one-off” toxic chemical.
“With PFAS alone, we know there are thousands in this chemical class, with many more now being linked to harmful outcomes,” Hackett said. “Testing for emerging contaminants to the State’s fullest capacity should be priority one to ensure contaminated water doesn’t, yet again, have devastating consequences.”
Tamsin Hollow, a member of the group Newburgh Clean Water Project, says testing for toxic chemicals is a simple, basic step that should be taken to protect all communities, regardless of size.
“Over four years after our water was found to be contaminated with PFAS, our primary water source in Newburgh remains hazardous to human health,” Hollow said. “Because we’re aware of that fact, we were able to switch over to an alternate, clean water source to protect our community while our watershed is remediated. To refuse to gather critical information about water quality is a death sentence for small communities. The DOH must test all communities regardless of size and give them a chance to protect the health of their residents.”
The Emerging Contaminant Monitoring Act ordered the DOH to create and regularly update a list of unregulated chemicals that contaminate water sources in communities of all sizes. However almost four years later there are 2,000 small water systems that have yet to be tested for unregulated contaminants such as strontium, chromium-6, or vanadium.
“Five years is a long time — a long time to live in limbo, to live in fear of the unknown — what will happen to my children, my grandchildren, my neighbors,” said Cathy Dawson, a Hoosick Falls resident. “I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through what I did. And yet, the Department of Health still isn’t testing the drinking water of other small communities for chemicals. This could be harmful. There is something very wrong with a society that will not protect its citizens from polluters! It is way past time for action and New Yorkers need answers as to what’s in their drinking water.”
The residents of Hoosick Falls are unfortunately not alone. According to a study by the New York Public Interest Research Group, as of May 2019 there were 6.4 million New Yorkers served water that have not been tested for emerging contaminants. There has also not been a statewide requirement for such testing that has extended for longer than two years.
If the DOH fails to implement the 2017 Emerging Contaminant Monitoring Act, Senator James Skoufis and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried have committed to passing a bill that pushes for expanded testing for a wider group of contaminants.
“We all have a responsibility to take care of the environment and the people who live here,” said Gottfried, the chair of the Assembly Health Committee, “and that means having a commitment to a high quality water system and implementing the testing and remediation necessary to meet these standards in communities across the state. We need to monitor emerging science about dangerous chemicals and regulate all dangerous chemicals through a broader Emerging Contaminant Monitoring List as the Legislature required in 2017.”
The legislation proposed by Sen. Skoufis and Assemblyman Gottfried would push for the first list of emerging contaminants to be identified 30 days after the legislation is enacted. Such a timeline would push for immediate action and allow more New Yorkers to know what is in their water supplies, including identifying chemicals that are being used to replace PFOAs that are still considered harmful contaminants.
Senator Skoufis and other supporters of immediate, more extensive water testing also emphasized the added public safety concern the pandemic has ensued, causing residents to fear leaving their homes but unable to rely on safety within their own homes due to clean water concerns.
“There is an urgent need for Governor Cuomo and the Department of Health to immediately implement testing for emerging contaminants,” said Rob Hayes, director of Clean Water at Environmental Advocates NY. “The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated the importance of clean water to keep people safe and healthy. Science has shown that some emerging contaminants, like PFAS, can harm the immune system and reduce vaccine effectiveness. Millions of New Yorkers have already waited too long to learn what’s in their drinking water.”
