(Editor’s note: This story by Edward Damon was first published in the Bennington Banner on Dec. 17, 2016.)
[H]OOSICK FALLS, N.Y. — Two companies would pay the village $850,000 under a settlement over PFOA contamination.
Saint-Gobain and Honeywell would reimburse the municipality for expenses that include water monitoring and analysis; use and repairs of the public water system; and fees for engineering, legal and public relations consultants, according to a news release sent out by the village on Friday.
Village trustees are poised to vote on the agreement during a special public meeting tentatively scheduled for Dec. 28. Fine details of the settlement — including the time period it covers and exact amount for each item — were not available on Friday. The settlement doesn’t appear to address some residents’ request to extend municipal water lines to homes with contaminated wells, or to cover damages and costs they incurred. Both companies face class action lawsuits, in which residents seek to recover damages to their property and health.
The agreement, along with legally enforceable state consent orders both companies agreed to in June, “will ensure that village residents are not forced to bear the financial burden of paying for the village’s response to the PFOA crisis — a situation they did not create,” Village Mayor David Borge said in a statement. “This is a substantial reimbursement that will significantly replenish the village coffers, ensure we continue to provide critical services for Village residents, and protect the Village in the future.”
The agreement also protects the village from future contamination at the companies’ nearby former factories, according to the news release. The agreement does not cover contamination that may have resulted from other locations, like the village-owned landfill.
Friday’s announcement provided more details after Tuesday’s monthly Village Board meeting. Trustees, Borge and two village attorneys entered executive session to discuss the agreement with the intent to vote. Meeting attendees questioned whether they would be able to review the agreement before the vote. After officials returned to open session, Borge announced the Dec. 28 meeting.
“Village Board members considered voting on a resolution to authorize the mayor to sign the agreement once it was finalized, but chose to wait until the final agreement was prepared and available for public review,” the news release stated.
The $850,000 is no small amount for the village of 7,000 people: The current fiscal year’s budget is about $3.4 million. Local and state officials have long said the village would be reimbursed for unbudgeted expenses after PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, led to a no-drink order on the public water system last December. The man-made chemical was used in manufacturing for decades to make non-stick Teflon-coated products. It’s been linked to kidney, testicular and thyroid cancers, high cholesterol and other diseases. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, which has owned a McCaffrey Street factory that makes tapes and foams since 1999, paid over $2 million for upgrades at the water treatment plant. Both companies agreed to pay for bottled water for residents and for water filters on impacted wells. The state says it has installed over 1,000 filters on wells around Hoosick and nearby Petersburgh, N.Y.
“We recognize that the village of Hoosick Falls has incurred unbudgeted expenses over the past two years to address elevated PFOA levels in the village’s municipal water supply,” a Saint-Gobain spokesperson said in a statement. “Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, together with Honeywell, has agreed to compensate the village for these costs as outlined in the proposed settlement agreement. We hope to finalize the agreement in the near future.”
A spokesperson for Honeywell said in a statement: “This proposed settlement agreement is intended to reimburse the Village for the costs it has incurred and does not affect our ongoing obligations to conduct the environmental investigations and necessary remediation or to pay for running the Village’s water treatment system.”
