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Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Schumer to Dept. of Defense: Clean up your mess
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer spoke in
front of a large filtration system, installed
at Washington Lake following PFOS
contamination of Newburgh drinking
water by Stewart Air National Guard
Base.
“You made the mess, you clean up the
mess,” he said.
The senator stopped in Newburgh
last week to lambaste the U.S.
Department of Defense on its lack of
action on perfluorinated-chemical (PFC)
contamination at the air base.
A full year after the start of the
Newburgh water crisis, the agency has
yet to begin a cleanup, despite what tests
show are ongoing discharges of PFOS
from the air base into the lake watershed.
“It’s unfathomable that the DoD could be
this irresponsible,” Schumer said.
The state Department of Environmental
Conservation has done extensive testing
at the air base and Washington Lake,
which serves as the main source of
drinking water for the City of Newburgh.
The DEC also sampled surrounding
tributaries, which continue to be polluted
by discharges from the air base.
“The DoD is saying they will not accept
those samples,” said Schumer, describing
the decision as “infuriating” and likely to
cost “double the work, double the harm”
in the long run.
In an email to the Mid Hudson Times
in early May, Air Force Civil Engineer
Center Public Affairs Chief Mark
Kinkade said the DoD was preparing
to launch its own investigation of PFC
contamination at the air base. No action
will be taken before the conclusion of the
investigation, expected to wrap up by the
end of the year, he said.
“The DoD and the U.S Air Force are
just playing games with the people
of the Hudson Valley and the City of
Newburgh,” Schumer railed. “I am fed
Senator Charles Schumer points to a granular-activated carbon filtration system next to Washington Lake as a remedy for Recreation Pond,
which continues to deliver PFOS into the lake watershed.
up… they are using every trick in the
book to avoid paying for a problem they
caused.”
The DoD has identified 13 locations
where PFOS releases have likely occurred
at the base. It is unclear whether the
DoD investigation will be completed by
October, when the city must switch back
to using water from Washington Lake
due to scheduled repairs of the Catskill
Aqueduct.
“We do not want 5,900 parts per
trillion of PFOS coming down into
Washington Lake,” said city Manager
Michael Ciaravino, referencing the level
of PFOS found at Recreation Pond last
year.
The retention pond receives storm
waters from the air base and flows directly
into Silver Stream, the main tributary of
Washington Lake. State testing points to
this pond as the primary delivery route
for PFCs entering the watershed.
In a later statement, Schumer called
on the DoD to immediately begin the
process of containing the chemical plume
and “provide the state with the funds
necessary for a full remediation.”
“My message to DOD is clear - accept
and promptly use the scientifically-sound
sampling of the DEC to develop a work
plan with all due speed,” the senator
stated. “Any other approach to sampling
is unacceptable, an unnecessary
impediment to full remediation, and it
places the financial burden of cleanup
on taxpayers who are not in any way
responsible for this toxic contamination
of their drinking (water) supply.”
Residents get few answers at PFOS sit-down session
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
A year after the breaking of the City of Newburgh
water crisis, Newburgh and New Windsor residents had
questions about how drinking PFOS-contaminated water
could affect their health.
“Have they correctly identified the problem?” asked
Alice Vaughan. “Are they working to address it?”
The City of Newburgh resident attended an informal
information session with staff from the New York State
Department of Health last Wednesday. About 50 people
brought their results from PFOS blood tests taken in the
spring and fall.
But, the news was spotty in terms of the human health
effects of drinking water containing PFOS, short for
perfluorooctane sulphanate. The chemical was found at
elevated levels in the City of Newburgh drinking water
supply at Washington Lake last year. “The information
that we have about this class of chemicals is somewhat
limited,” said DOH research scientist James Bowers.
He was referring to perfluorinated chemicals
including PFOS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and
perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) – chemicals that
were measured in blood samples taken so far from about
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