DiNapoli: State must maintain water quality vigilance.
Alarm bells sounded in Hoosick Falls when its water supply showed up dangerous levels of Perfluorooctanoic acid, a water and oil repellent, used since the 1940s in products including non-stick cookware, stain-resistant carpeting and microwave popcorn bags.
Now, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says the state must raise the level of oversight on hundreds of New York water systems to safeguard public health.
Based on the Comptroller’s review of water system reports, nearly 90 percent of the state’s 192 public water systems detected contaminants equaling or exceeding limits.
"How do we protect drinking water supplies so we don’t have any of these chemicals?"
Additionally, the report said, it is incumbent on the state health department to maintain a up-to-date database on contaminants that could pose water system hazards, along with detailing their maximum allowable levels.
In the wake of the Newburgh and Hoosick Falls incidents and the fallout from serious lead contamination in Flint, Michigan, $2.5 billion was allocated in this year’s state budget for water infrastructure projects, including $120 million for remediation of contaminated supplies; at least $20 million for the replacement of lead drinking water service lines; and up to $10 million for information technology systems related to water supplies.
By DiNapoli’s estimate more than $5 billion has been spent by the state and federal government on local water systems over the past 20 years.
Among the recommendations from the Comptroller’s Office: •Create a statewide response plan, with public input, to effectively address drinking water contamination incidents.
"Water contamination incidents in the Village of Hoosick Falls and the City of Newburgh illustrate the vulnerabilities of the current regulatory structure," the comptroller’s office said in its report.

Hoosick Falls meeting addressing ‘shocking’ new report on contaminated water.
HOOSICK FALLS – The mayor of Hoosick Falls is addressing a new report Monday evening showing what he says are shocking levels of PFOA in the village.
Also under discussion is an investigation that involves testing of potential Superfund sites there.
This will help the Department of Environmental Conservation determine if any of these sites will officially be designated as Superfund sites.
If that happens, those sites would be considered for cleanup, because of the risk the contamination poses to the public.
Saint-Gobain and Honeywell International are blamed for the PFOA contamination in the Hoosick Falls drinking water.
The companies are performing tests at four sites under a consent order and the DEC is overseeing the testing.
The EPA’s recommendation is that drinking water contain less than 70 parts per trillion of the cancer-causing contaminant.
The DEC says this testing will help them hold those responsible for the contamination accountable.
The second hour will be in the high school gym where members of the community can ask questions of state officials as well as representatives from Saint-Gobain and Honeywell.

The amended bill, HB 463, which would have required the state to consider tougher standards for acceptable limits of perfluorinated chemicals like perfluorooctanoic acid in drinking water, died Thursday in Concord as a House and Senate conference committee could not agree.
Litchfield, Merrimack, Bedford and Amherst residences have been struggling with PFOA contamination in their water after Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics allegedly released the chemical out of its smokestack.
Byron said DES believes it still has the authority to address this new pathway of contamination, and that the state is still protected.
However, Byron said it would have been beneficial to explicitly indicate this authority in state law.
Sen. Dan Feltes, D-Concord, said in a separate statement that he is “very disappointed House Republicans rejected drinking water standards that protect the public health, particularly prenatal and early childhood health.” Last week, state Rep. Chris Christensen of Merrimack said during a committee meeting that DES already has authority to regulate smokestacks that emit something that results in groundwater contamination.
According to the bill, it would have required DES to establish a drinking water standard and ambient groundwater quality standard for PFOA and perfluorooctanesulfonate within 120 days.
However, there is an ambient groundwater quality standard at 70 parts per trillion for combined PFOA and PFOS consistent with EPA’s health advisory standards,” states the bill.
If the bill were adopted and the department determined a lower standard was appropriate, the bill would have resulted in the establishment of a drinking water maximum contaminant level and revised the existing ambient groundwater quality standard.
A preliminary analysis to lower the standards to 20 parts per trillion, the number used in Vermont, would have cost more than $40 million, according to the proposed legislation.
khoughton@newstote.com

New research from Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Northeastern University in Boston details PFC pollution in tap water supplies for 15 million Americans in 27 states and from more than four dozen industrial and military sources from Maine to California.
EWG and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern collaborated to produce an interactive map that combines federal drinking water data and information on all publicly documented cases of PFAS pollution from manufacturing plants, military air bases, civilian airports and fire training sites.
On the map, blue circles show public water systems where PFCs were detected in public drinking water systems – the larger the circle, the more people served by the system.
Red dots indicate a contamination site in Northeastern’s PFAS Contamination Site Tracker.
Drinking water contamination Despite widespread contamination and mounting evidence of health hazards, there are no federal regulations for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water.
EWG’s analysis of the results shows that the tests found PFOA and/or PFOS in 162 systems serving 15.1 million Americans.
Because the EPA only required reporting of detections at or above 20 ppt for PFOA and 40 ppt for PFOS, all of those water supplies had detections exceeding Grandjean and Clapp’s safe level of 1 ppt.
There is no ongoing national-level testing of PFCs in drinking water, and the EPA has said it could be 2019 or later before it decides whether to set a national drinking water standard for PFOA and PFOS.
The Site Tracker provides detailed information for 50 industrial or military contamination sites in 18 states and Guam, plus Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.
Groundwater at the base was found to have 580,000 ppt of PFOS.

The military and local water authorities in Horsham, Warminster and Warrington are spending millions of dollars to install 20-foot tall towers of carbon at numerous drinking wells.
About two dozen chemicals related to PFOS and PFOA also can be found in water contaminated by firefighting foam, and those chemicals slip through carbon treatment faster than the other two perfluorinated compounds.
This means the chemicals could get into drinking water if a water authority isn’t looking for them.
“If you’re treating for PFOS or PFOA only, a lot of these other chemicals are going to break through the system,” said Chris Higgins, a professor of environmental engineering at the Colorado college and the study’s lead researcher.
Most large carbon filtration systems, including those being installed locally, pass water through one carbon filtration tower, then test it for the chemicals, and then pass it through a second tower before it’s ready for drinking.
This two-tiered approach may not be as effective as previously thought, Higgins said, based on his research and other studies.
The military has agreed to pay to install carbon filtration systems for those wells.
And Warminster gets all its water from the North Wales system, according to Warminster Municipal Authority manager Tim Hagey.
Private water supplier Aqua Pennsylvania, which serves a number of communities in Bucks and Montgomery counties, said this week it would install and test carbon filtration systems on contaminated wells in Hatboro and Chalfont.
When tests on one Hatboro well and one Chalfont well showed levels approaching the EPA safe limit last year, they were taken offline.

Airway Heights water safe to drink, officials say.
Airway Heights officials said Thursday that the city’s water supply is now safe to drink.
Since the discovery of the high levels of contamination, the city began to flush its pipes with Spokane water.
But it took three weeks for enough of Spokane’s water to clean out the system to levels considered safe to drink.
Any water restriction must be approved by the City Council and would likely mean establishing an odd-even day watering schedule.
Although Spokane can pull as much water as needed from the aquifer, Anderson said how much Airway Heights can receive is limited by the connections to Spokane’s water system.
Or, they could tap into a Fairchild Air Force Base water line that runs through the city of Airway Heights.
“And I don’t blame them.” Wolffy’s Hamburgers owner Justin Davis also said his business was down significantly.
“The biggest thing is the customers are scared,” he said.
At first the city provided restaurants with potable water, Anderson said.

Unwell water history.
Since 2014, 22 public drinking water wells and more than 200 private wells in Bucks and Montgomery counties have been shut down due to contamination by unregulated chemicals perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), affecting the drinking water of more than 100,000 people.
The bulk of the contamination is occurring near a trio of former and current military bases in Horsham, Warminster and Warrington, and is suspected to have originated in firefighting foams used on those bases as far back as the early 1970s.
Contamination from unknown sources has closed wells in Doylestown, Chalfont, East Rockhill and other communities.
This news organization has been investigating and writing extensively on the topic, telling the stories of local people who believe they’ve been sickened by the chemicals, speaking with health experts on potential effects of exposure, and examining actions taken by local, state and federal agencies.
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Stuart replaced wells after EPA found too much PFOS and PFOA in drinking water.
In 2016, when the EPA recognized the chemicals’ dangers and lowered acceptable PFOS levels by 65 percent, the city closed and later replaced the wells that were contaminating the water supply to all customers, city spokesman Ben Hogarth said.
Cleaning the water Stuart’s levels meet today’s EPA standards, as they did before 2016, but they’re still higher what many experts consider safe.
Heightened exposure can cause cancer, liver damage, low birth weight and a weakened immune system, according to the EPA.
The only safe level is 1 part per trillion, said Bill Walker, an Environmental Working Group senior scientist.
That’s analogous to one square inch in 250 square miles.
The city also has allocated $600,000 in the 2017-18 proposed budget for additional water treatment that would remove these chemicals, Peters said.
Some experts caution individuals against relying on such filters, however.
"We think this is an issue that needs to be addressed on a community level, and it shouldn’t be down to the individual homeowner to remove these types of chemicals," said Andrews, the Environmental Working Group senior scientist.
Their health effects are unknown, and they’re not as easy to remove from water as PFOS and PFOA, said Phil Brown, a Northeastern University professor who co-authored a study with the Environmental Working Group on PFOS and PFOA levels in drinking water throughout the U.S. More studies Stuart’s previously high levels were cited in that study, released Thursday.

New research from EWG and Northeastern University in Boston details PFC pollution in tap water supplies for 15 million Americans in 27 states and from more than four dozen industrial and military sources from Maine to California.
EWG and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern collaborated to produce an interactive map that combines federal drinking water data and information on all publicly documented cases of PFAS pollution from manufacturing plants, military air bases, civilian airports and fire training sites.
[3] Drinking water contamination Despite widespread contamination and mounting evidence of health hazards, there are no federal regulations for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water.
Under the EPA’s Unmonitored Contaminant Monitoring Rule, or UCMR, from 2013 to 2016 all U.S. public water systems serving 10,000 or more customers tested their supplies for PFOA, PFOS, and four other PFCs.
[†] EWG’s analysis of the results shows that the tests found PFOA and/or PFOS in 162 systems serving 15.1 million Americans.
Because the EPA only required reporting of detections at or above 20 ppt for PFOA and 40 ppt for PFOS, all of those water supplies had detections exceeding Grandjean and Clapp’s safe level of 1 ppt.​ Several large metro areas had detections in only a small number of samples.
[7] There is no ongoing national-level testing of PFCs in drinking water, and the EPA has said it could be 2019 or later before it decides whether to set a national drinking water standard for PFOA and PFOS.
The Site Tracker provides detailed information for 50 industrial or military contamination sites in 18 states and Guam, plus Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.
Groundwater at the base was found to have 580,000 ppt of PFOS.
Of the 47 locations where the source of the contamination is known or suspected, 21 sources are military bases, 20 are industrial facilities and seven are from civilian firefighting sites.

Airway Heights water contamination to last at least 10 days.
AIRWAY HEIGHTS, Wash. — Airway Heights city officials said Wednesday night the water that has been contaminated in their city system will not be cleared for at least 10 days.
The acids are classified by the EPA as emerging contaminants and are present in common household items and heat and fire resistant products, including aqueous film forming foam formulations that were used by the Air Force in fire trucks from 1970-2016 including those at Fairchild AFB.
The air force is validating the findings and they expect to provide final results to the city within two to three weeks.
So far, 40,000 gallons of water has been distributed both at a pickup point and delivered to those who can’t leave their homes.
Albert Tripp, the Airway Heights city manager, said the reason for the delay in getting the water cleared is because they must treat the water before discharging it from the system.
“We do consider that constituent will need to be treated before it is discharged to the ground or the environment and so we’re working with the city to identify ways to proceed cleaning the distribution system.” City leaders said Tuesday bottled water will be given out behind the Yokes at 12825 W. 17th.
Officials ask that you bring a driver’s license or a piece of mail to verify your address.
City leaders said they will be taking steps to remove the contaminants from the water.
They hope to reduce the levels of the contaminants from the city’s water system to safe levels within the next three to four days.