Cleanup of Hoosick Falls Contamination Site To Begin in Spring
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) announced this week that cleanup of the Hoosick Falls Superfund site, which has been central in the village’s PFOA water contamination, will begin this spring.
Saint-Gobain Corporation and Honeywell International, Inc., the two companies being held liable for the contamination, are responsible for the environmental cleanup work at the project site located at 14 McCaffrey Street in Hoosick Falls.
The environmental cleanup action will be performed as an Interim Remedial Measure (IRM) under New York’s State Superfund Program and the provisions of an Order on Consent established between the responsible parties and the NYSDEC.
“An IRM is a cleanup activity that may be taken to prevent, mitigate or remedy contamination attributed to a site prior to the full characterization of the nature and extent of contamination. The objective of this IRM is to prevent continued migration of onsite perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) from the McCaffrey Street project site toward the Village of Hoosick Falls’ municipal water supply wellfield,” the DEC said in a press release.
The IRM plans include the installation of Granular Activated Carbon filtration vessels that will treat extracted groundwater and remove PFOA contamination.
The cleanup process, which will be overseen by the NYSDEC and State Health Department, is said to begin as early as May. Site preparation work is estimated to begin in June and the final installation and testing of the remediation effort should take place this summer.
More details of the Interim Remedial Measure plans can be found here.
New York State may now have the toughest standards in the nation for drinking water after the state’s Drinking Water Quality Council recommended maximum contaminant levels for toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer and other health risks.
New York State legislators Ellen Jaffee and Liz Krueger have called on the Department of Health to impose the maximum allowable amounts of PFOA, PFOS and 1,4-dioxane in drinking water.
More than two years after the Taconic Plastics plant in Petersburgh, New York first alerted the state of concerns about contamination around its Route 22 facility, the company is beginning an in-depth investigation into the extent of PFOA contamination in the area.
On Tuesday night, the Hoosick Falls Village Board unanimously voted to accept a $330,250 reimbursement from Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and Honeywell International for costs to run and maintain the filtration system put in place after the village’s water supply was contaminated with PFOA.
Twelve members of a new state Drinking Water Quality Council have been named, preparing the group to hold its first official meeting on October 2nd.