by Deb Alter
The Village Board announced at a Special Meeting on Thursday, January 7, that a temporary carbon filtration system will be installed at the water plant and could be online as soon as five weeks. It will remove nearly all of the PFOAs in the Village water supply. This means that residents will no longer need to go to Tops for bottled water, although it will be there, paid for by Saint-Gobain, for those who need it. A long-term solution is still in the works.
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The temporary carbon filtration system, which has been approved by the NY State Department of Health, will be paid for by Saint-Gobain. It will filter out almost all of the PFOAs to a level significantly less than 20 parts per trillion. Pilot studies have proven that Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) filtration is definitely an effective way to remove PFOAs from the water.
The temporary system is a Calgon Model 10-40 Modular GAC unit. According to the Village website, there was only one of the required temporary GAC systems available, so the parties involved in designing and approving the system worked diligently to insure that Hoosick Falls did not lose this opportunity to another entity that may have had a similar filtering need. The Board passed a resolution at the special meeting authorizing the Mayor to order it, which he has since done; delivery is expected within two weeks.
The temporary water filtration system will pump less water than the Village usually does, but residents will not see lower water pressure because the pumps will be working more hours per day to make up for the longer time it takes to filter the water. Currently, the water plant can pump one million gallons a day. The temporary filter can pump 500,000 gallons per day. The water needs of the Village are 350,000 to 400,000 gallons per day. There is a bypass valve that, when switched over, will allow the plant to pump 1,000,000 gallons in the case of an emergency, such as a fire.
CT Male Associates, the engineering firm hired by Saint-Gobain and the lead firm on the project, provided the NYSDOH with the Design Report and the supporting information for the GAC treatment system, which was approved by the DOH on January 7. Although CT Male are the lead engineers on the project, the Village has retained the MRB Group, another engineering firm, to monitor CT Male’s work, looking over documents, plans, and other aspects of project production.
Many citizens, as well as Board members, have raised the drill-new-wells option as a scenario the Village should be exploring. Deputy Mayor Ric DiDonato said, “Certainly, because of that, we [the Village Board] are talking about it. In the end, the option that engineers and experts on PFOA (including the EPA) confirm will offer the least risk to our population will be what we will get. That may be filtering, that may be new wells, or it may be something else entirely. For the time being, we are getting a filtering system that has been proven to be effective. The NYSDOH would not recommend that we pursue this option if they didn’t feel it was the best course of action at this time. Whatever the final solution is, it needs to be bulletproof to insure the best health outcome for our population.”
Dr. Marcus Martinez, founder of Hoosick Healthy Water said he’s very happy that, assuming it works, this [temporary solution] is happening, it’s much better than waiting until fall. He said he hadn’t seen the specs on it yet, but if the numbers are low enough, it’s okay for the short-term, but the long-term solution has to be to filter out to the lowest possible amount. He believes that it is now possible to test for as low as 1.7 ppt, and possibly even filter out the chemical to undetectable amounts.
As for a “full clean-up,” Mayor David Borge said the Village Board’s focus is on making sure that Hoosick Falls residents have good, clean water. “We need to determine for certain where the PFOAs are coming from. We will be pursuing a full investigation to determine the source(s) with the support of the EPA, DEC, DOH and other appropriate agencies,” he said.
In the meantime, work on the permanent GAC filter system is moving forward and is on schedule. A copy of the approval letter for the temporary system is on the Village of Hoosick Falls website.
The Village has developed a separate webpage to keep the community informed regarding the discovery of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) in the municipal water system. The Village is committed to keeping an open line of communication with the community as the investigation continues, and this new webpage provides a place to gather relevant documents, resources, upcoming meeting details and the like. It will be continually updated with the latest news on the Village’s efforts to address the water problem. You can link to it easily through the Village website.[/private]