US House probes response to toxic chemical in drinking water

Marchione would not say whether she thinks Governor Cuomo’s administration is at fault in any way for waiting for over a year to tell residents that their drinking water might be poisoned with PFOA.

“It raises serious questions that the county and state would continue to assure residents the water was safe to drink even though the federal government had already warned residents to the contrary”, the letter stated. But Borge was relying on advice from the state health department, which issued “fact sheets” to residents that month stating no adverse health effects were expected from normal use of the village’s water.

Enck said she wasn’t aware of the potential problem until a local attorney brought it to her attention in November 2015.

“The committee is concerned that a sluggish response to the crisis in Hoosick Falls at the state and county levels caused residents to remain exposed to unsafe levels of PFOA for longer than was necessary”, Chaffetz and Lummis said.

The Assembly hearings, to be held in Albany and Suffolk County in September, were announced the same day jurors in an OH federal court said PFOA used by DuPont Co.at its West Virginia plant caused a man to get testicular cancer and awarded him $5.1 million in damages. PFOA is a toxic chemical long used in the manufacture of Teflon and similar materials. He also disputed the committee’s characterization of the state’s response as “sluggish”.

To that end, the New York State Senate will hold public hearings in an effort to explore the sources of water contamination, examine state and federal oversight issues, and determine how we can prevent this from happening in the future. The chemical has been linked to cancer and other illnesses.

To date, the hospital says the program has measured PFOA levels in the blood of more than 2,500 participants.