The Hoosick Falls Central School District will host a public meeting this week to discuss health concerns due to the recent PFOA water contamination and possible plans for cleaning up the town's water supply.
The meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday in the auditorium at Hoosick Falls High School, is being presented by Healthy Hoosick Water, a nonprofit group formed to push for officials to address the contamination of the village water supply with perfluorooctanoic acid, a toxic chemical used for decades primarily to make Teflon coating for cookware. The group is also looking to address the use and disposal of the industrial compound.
Faraci Lange attorneys, Stephen Schwarz and Hadley Matarazzo, will be present to represent the firm's ongoing investigation of a potential lawsuit against one or more companies believed to be responsible for the toxic health risks caused by the PFOA water contamination.
Among those scheduled to speak at the meeting is Judith Enck, regional administrator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA recommended in December that village water not be used for cooking or drinking because of the presence of PFOA in the public supply. The federal agency also recommended that private well owners have their water tested for contamination, as well.
Samples from the water system, which serves about 4,900 people, had PFOA levels that exceeded the EPA's "provisional health advisory" of 400 parts per trillion in each liter of water. Some studies have linked PFOA to certain types of cancer, and the EPA is considering regulating it under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
Officials are unsure of how PFOA got into the water supply. Testing at the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics site on McCaffrey Street found PFOA levels up to 45 times greater than the EPA's recommendation, but company officials maintain they don't know their facility is the source of the chemical in the water system.