T IMES
MID
City files
federal suit
over PFOS
HUDSON
Vol. 30, No. 32
3
AUGUST 8 - 14, 2018
3
ONE DOLLAR
Peter
Pan Jr. Knights make
playoff run
Page 10 Page 32
SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR
Newburgh remembers
City welcomes healing wall, honors Veterans
Air Force, chemical makers,
state as defendants
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
The City of Newburgh has filed
a lawsuit in federal court to force the
cleanup of ongoing contamination of
the city’s water supply by polyfluoralkyl
substances (PFAS). The lawsuit also seeks
to require more than a dozen defendants
to pay for clean drinking water until the
cleanup is complete.
“The city is asking the court to hear
and respond to our citizens’ exposure to
toxic contaminants,” City of Newburgh
Mayor Torrance Harvey said in a
statement on Tuesday. “We are standing
up for our citizens’ rights to clean and
healthy water, and demanding damages so
we can provide our citizens rebates for the
contaminated water they received.”
The lawsuit was filed more than
two years following the shutdown of
Washington Lake, the city’s main source
of drinking water until elevated levels of
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) were
found in the lake in 2016. Testing traced
the chemical back to Stewart Air National
Guard Base at Stewart International
Airport, where PFOS-containing fire
foam was used for decades.
Twenty-three defendants include the
New York State Air National Guard, the
U.S. Air Force, Federal Express, and the
Continued on page 4
Carl Aiello
Visitors to The Wall That Heals look for names of those killed in action inscribed on the panels.
By WAYNE A. HALL
The Wall That Heals rolled into
Newburgh’s waterfront park for four
days of viewing Sunday, giving an
estimated 300 people more than four
days of viewing.
Visiors could make rubbings of names
on the wall.
Some people cried as they located
loved ones killed in battle.
The wall has 58,318 names of Vietnam
era casualties on 375 feet across the
smooth surfaces of black marble of the
wall curving 375 feet across with raised
lettering.
Volunteer guide John Mazzone said,
“We just let people alone and helped
them find their loved ones on the wall.”
“It was very good for we veterans to
see this,” said Vietnam veteran Dave
McTamaney of Newburgh.
Daily life in Vietnam was replicated
in a mobile display trailer of objects
necessary to survive Vietnam’s tropical
. climate, insects, snakes and booby
WWW.MIDHUDSONTIMES.COM
traps.
Veterans showed up to take rubbings
of the wall’s lettering where they found
loved ones names.
Veterans showed up and shared the
war’s terrible costs.
U.S. Marine veteran Dan Clarino of
Newburgh recalls switching planes in
Vietnam and seeing the one he had just
left blow up minutes later in an enemy
rocket attack.
Visitors knew the wall was going to be
Continued on page 31