TIMES
MID
DEC to
lower water
levels at
Washington
Lake
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
Contractors for the New York
State Department of Environmental
Conservation have begun work to
lower water levels at Washington
Lake. Water levels have swelled since
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) was
found in and around the lake, which was
the city’s primary source of drinking
water until May.
Contractors began preliminary work
on Monday.
“Our plan is to lower and maintain
the water level through a direct
discharge of Lake Washington water to
Silver Stream, after first treating the
water with portable, granular-activated
carbon treatment units,” DEC Deputy
Commissioner of Remediation and
Materials Management Martin Brand
wrote in a letter to Newburgh City
Manager Michael Ciaravino last week.
Brand said the discharge will lead to
a portion of Silver Stream, downstream
of diversion gates that were closed to cut
off the flow of water from Silver Stream,
which also flows through the recentlydesignated Superfund site at the Stewart
Air National Guard Base.
Continued on page 4
HUDSON
Vol. 28, No 34
3
AUGUST 24 - 30, 2016
3
ONE DOLLAR
Guide to
the
celebration
SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR
Harzardous to our health?
Gillibrand calls for blood tests in wake of PFOS
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is
calling on the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention to offer blood testing for
perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) to City
of Newburgh residents.
“Residents of Newburgh should be
able to drink their water without having
to worry about whether it is going to
harm them, and they have a right to know
the extent of how this water crisis has
already affected them,” said Gillibrand in
a statement last week.
She urged the CDC to work with the
New York State Department of Health
to offer blood tests in order to get
“clarity about the extent” of the PFOS
contamination. “We need to use every
tool and resource the government has,
from testing to funding to scientific
expertise, to fully investigate the sources
of this contamination and prevent it from
happening again,” Gillibrand said.
The senator joins a chorus of officials
to demand federal action following the
discovery of PFOS in the city’s drinking
water supply in May.
Samples showed extremely high levels
of PFOS at an outfall pipe located at
Continued on page 2
Blue & Gold
Workers paint the word “Newburgh” in the end zone of Academy Field recently, as part of the replacement of the turn on the Newburgh Free
Academy Field. Story, additional photos on page 40.
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