Full House At Petersburgh Meeting – Lights, Cameras, And Action
Four TV Crews, Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin And Attorney David Engel Attend
by Alex Brooks
A large group of people assembled in the meeting room of the Petersburgh Town Hall for the Petersburgh Town Board meeting, and Supervisor Peter Schaaphok said the Fire Code only allows occupancy of the room by 33 people. There were at least 50 people in the room.[private]
An emissary was sent to the Veterans Memorial Hall to see if the Boy Scouts who were camped out there would switch venues with the Town Board meeting, but the Boy Scouts already had their tents set up and it was impractical to move it all at this point, so they went ahead with the meeting in the overcrowded room anyway.
With four TV cameras rolling, many of those present expressed impatience with the Town’s response to the PFOA situation. The first matter that came up was the water distribution system, because Schaaphok had ordered one pallet too few of water the previous week, and on Saturday at about 11 am the water ran out, and those who arrived after that time were unable to get any water unless they drove up to TOPS Market in Hoosick Falls.
Schaaphok took responsibility for the snafu, and said it would not happen again, but some said the Town should not be responsible for the water distribution at all, because it should be handled by Taconic. Until now, it has been a collaborative effort – the Town orders and stores the water, and Taconic pays for it and send two people over at distribution times to help distribute the water. Some felt a program of water delivery should be set up at Taconic’s expense so that people don’t have to come down to the Town Hall at specified times and lug the water home themselves.
Anger at Taconic appears to be building. Several people asked why no one from Taconic has come to any of the Town meetings to answer questions about the PFOA situation. Others asked why Taconic has not yet been declared a Superfund site, so that the State could spend money freely to fix the situation, knowing they will recoup it later from the company.
One resident who recently bought a house on Potter Hill has found that his water has 28 parts per trillion of PFOA in it. He has young children, and is not comfortable having them drink the water, but Taconic will not pay for a filter for his house, because the result is below 100 parts per trillion. He said he tried to call Taconic and ask them to help him, but was rebuffed. He noted that if his house was in Vermont, it would be above the legal limit and the responsible party would have to fix it. If a certain level of contamination is toxic in Vermont, it is toxic in New York also. He said he thought there should be zero tolerance for companies contaminating drinking water.
Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin attended the meeting, and since he was the only person in State government present amid a great deal of complaints about the behavior of the DEC, the DOH, and the Cuomo administration, people addressed these grievances to him, asking why the State has not come out with a new lower standard for PFOA contamination yet, and why the State has not declared Taconic a Superfund site as they did with Saint-Gobain. McLaughlin agreed – why indeed? He was happy to join in the criticism of the Cuomo administration, DEC and DOH.
Supervisor Peter Schaaphok said the question of what Taconic will be responsible for and whether the company’s campus will be declared a Superfund site are matters that are under negotiation between the company’s attorneys and the DEC’s attorneys. This process has been dragging on for quite some time, and it is not clear how much longer it will take. Schaaphok said the DEC attorneys involved do not give him updates on how the negotiation is going, and he feels powerless to intervene or to advocate the Town’s position in those discussions.
Members of the audience said The Town should have its attorney write a letter asking to have Taconic pay for an expert to represent the Town in those negotiations. This was referred to as “independent review.” This may have referred to an environmental attorney, or an engineer, or a toxicologist, or possibly all of the above. Schaaphok agreed to write such a letter, but was not optimistic that it would have any effect. Even if the Town were to hire an expensive attorney, it’s not clear that Taconic and DEC would allow him or her access to the details of the ongoing negotiation.
David Engel, the attorney for Healthy Hoosick Water who played an important role in getting State action in the case of Hoosick Falls, had come to the meeting at the invitation of Emily Marpe, and at this point he raised his hand and stated his point of view. He said “if you think you have to wait for the State to respond to this problem at whatever pace it chooses, you are wrong.” He said Petersburgh could be waiting for many months for DEC and Taconic to come to an agreement. He advised the Town, “Don’t wait for DEC to fix this.” He said if the Town makes the effort, it can get relief. He said the Town has to tell the State and Taconic what it wants, and tell them what the Town will do if it doesn’t get it. In other words, the Town needs an expert attorney to represent their interests and assert their rights.
Engel said that evening he was hearing a lot of distrust of government entities, and there is no doubt that there was plenty of that attitude in the room. He noted that the NYS Department of Health was a bit remiss in keeping up with the science on PFOA. He said there is a pretty solid and growing body of science about the toxicity of PFOA, but it has not yet been incorporated into the regulatory framework of New York State or the EPA, and it takes citizen advocates to make that happen. He concluded by saying “You can’t sit back and say ‘oh, there’s nothing we can do.’ If you don’t ask, you don’t get. There is power in your position, if you assert yourself.”
Schaaphok agreed to seek funding for such an advocate for the Town, and to request that Taconic take over the water distribution.
Schaaphok gave a summary of what has happened so far. The County has taken 258 water samples to date. 175 of those samples have come back from the lab with results. Of those 175, 15 were found to have levels of PFOA contamination greater than 1000 parts per trillion (ppt); another 32 had levels of contamination between 100 ppt and 1000 ppt; and 25 more had levels between 21 and 100 ppt.
So far 20 filtration units, (known as POETs) have been installed on private wells by Taconic’s contractors, and 6 of those have been tested and approved as effectively removing the PFOA from the water.
Engineers are continuing to work on designing a filtration system for the Petersburgh Water District, so progress is being made toward getting that done, but Schaaphok did not make any guesses about how soon a filtration system may be installed.
Schaaphok said the Town will be scheduling another infomation session soon when those who are involved in various parts of the PFOA response can update the public on their progress.
At this point the Town Board took up their regular business and the TV crews went outside to interview people and send in their reports.[/private]