Mid Hudson Times Feb. 28 2018 | Page 3

3 Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, February 28, 2018 City intends to file civil suits re: water contamination By SHANTAL RILEY [email protected] More than a year and a half following the emergence of the City of Newburgh water crisis, the city has taken legal action against parties it alleges are responsible for the PFOS contamination of its drinking water. The city sent notices of intent to file civil action to 10 parties this month. These include the U.S. Department of Defense and the New York Air National Guard, which operates the Stewart Air National Guard Base. Found in the city’s drinking-water reservoir at Washington Lake, the chemical perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) was traced back to the air base in 2016. The New York State Department of Transportation and New York State, which owns the airport property, were also named. The letters state that “the city intends to file a civil suit” against the parties “for past and continuing practices at Stewart Air National Guard Base and the Stewart International Airport, including discharge(s), release(s), spill(s) and/or disposal(s) of solid or hazardous waste materials...” The notices cite the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Water Act, which, among other rules, sets water-quality standards for surface- water contaminants. “What we’re asking for, ultimately, is for the contamination to be stopped at its source,” said City Manager Michael Ciaravino at the city’s Activity Center on Monday night. “Not at the end, in our treatment plant, but to be stopped at its source.” “It is important for us to name all the parties, including the landowner, which is the State of New York, in our (filings),” Ciaravino said, explaining “the rules are pretty harsh in federal court. If you do not name parties within a certain time period, at the inception of a lawsuit you can in many instances be forever barred from naming them later.” The overlap of various entities invested in and at the airport property –state ownership alongside operations of the Air National Guard, for example – has produced “a strong disagreement between the federal government and the State of New York, related to where the relative liabilities lie,” Ciaravino said. The city also sent notices to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has a lease to operate Stewart Airport, the UK-based National Express Group, which ran the airport in the 2000s, and Federal Express Corporation, which currently operates from the airport. The city also named the U.S. Air National Guard Bureau, the U. S. Air Force and the United States of America. The notices refer to perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), “including but not limited to PFOS, other solid or hazardous waste materials, and/or other hazardous substances, resulting in past and current surface and groundwater, soil, and sediment contamination, which Your journey to saving more starts here. have led to contamination at the airport, property, Washington Lake, and city watershed, and which present or may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health and/or the environment.” “At the end of the day, we’re talking about millions of dollars and many damages, not only resulting from the past but also into the future and ultimately in perpetuity…,” Ciaravino said, relating not only to the cleanup but maintenance of the city’s new water treatment plant, which contains new, carbon-filtration tanks that will require regular care and eventual replacement. Clean water is a “key tool for economic development,” the city manager said. “We have some of the cleanest water in the State of New York. If we can maintain this into perpetuity, the City of Newburgh will be on the map, particularly as we look at the other communities that draw their water currently from the Hudson River.” Until it was banned in 2000, PFOS was used in the U.S. to make carpeting, detergents, packaging, non- stick cookware and fire-fighting foam, used for many years at the air base. Both PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), part of the same group of perfluorinated chemicals, are considered to be “emerging contaminants” and are not regulated at the federal level. The EPA lowered the lifetime health advisory level Continued on page 4 having imagine Benjamin Franklin at your side. Discovering electricity was important for us all. 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