(This article by Edward Damon was first published in the Bennington Banner on Dec. 15, 2016.)
HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. — Village leaders are close to having a signed written agreement between the municipality and the companies potentially responsible for PFOA contamination.
Village Trustees, Mayor David Borge and two attorneys representing the village met in executive session on Tuesday night to review a draft agreement sent to them by representatives of for Saint-Gobain and Honeywell. The two companies are potentially responsible for contamination from the man-made chemical, state environmental officials say. Both companies have already verbally agreed to providing bottled water. Both have entered into consent orders with the state requiring them to study and clean up current and former manufacturing facilities in the village.
Village officials and attorneys met in executive session for under 30 minutes before reconvening the regularly scheduled Village Trustee meeting. Mayor David Borge said the trustees will meet on Wednesday, Dec. 28, at 6 p.m. in the village hall. Copies of the agreement will be available for the public to review.
“The board will enter executive session to discuss any details the attorneys may be recommending,” Borge said. “We’ll come out and have a general discussion about that, and I’ll ask the board to take action.”
Officials have said costs expended by the village would be recovered in an agreement between the municipality and the companies. The village’s water supply had been affected by PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid. The chemical, once used when making Teflon-coated products, has been linked to cancers and other diseases.
Saint-Gobain and Honeywell agreed to provide bottled water for residents. And Saint-Gobain agreed to fund upgrades to the water treatment plant, estimated at over $2 million.
Construction of a so-called “permanent” filtration system on the village’s public water system is moving along, according to Borge. It’ll still be a couple of weeks until the system is turned on.
A filtration system was installed at the village’s water treatment plant in February and a no-drink order was lifted on March 30. But state and local officials have said that system was only a temporary measure to remove the manmade chemical PFOA from the water supply. The new permanent, or full capacity system, was also manufactured by Calgon Carbon. Delivered in October, they are about twice the size of the first ones installed.
The two large filter chambers were filled with granulated activated carbon on Dec. 7, according to Borge. The project is in “the fine tuning phase,” he said during Tuesday night’s village board meeting. That includes regular sampling for PFOA, which turned up in the village water supply.
The state’s Department of Health will need to give approval before the water treatment plant switches to the larger filters, he said.
“You will not see any change in water pressure, or have any negative impact whatsoever,” Borge said.
Calgon Carbon representatives will return to the village in late January and February, to remove the temporary system out of the container area, which would become storage for the water plant.
