by Alex Brooks
Those who arrived early at the Hoosick Falls Central School for the State Senate PFOA hearings were greeted by a guy with blue hair dressed in a superhero outfit advocating in mystical terms for clean water. [private]The media were shoulder to shoulder across the front of the auditorium and TV cameras blocked the view of everyone near the front of the room. It’s clear that political posturing and finger pointing were on some people’s agendas. But a day that began as a media circus was brought back down to earth by the moving testimony of Mike Hickey, who described his father’s diagnosis with cancer, and the surgery he had, the period of hope after the surgery that the cancer might be gone, and then the return of cancer, and the final six month period when the cancer spread and they realized his father was not going to beat it.
Photo by Steve Bradley
Hickey struggled to master his emotion as he told this story. He spoke also of how hard his father worked, working two jobs for 32 years – the 11 to 7 shift at the plant now owned by Saint-Gobain, and then driving a bus morning and afternoon. He spoke of his father’s relationship to the school children he drove to and from school, and the large turnout at his father’s wake because of all the kids who had grown up riding his bus and the bonds that had developed through that relationship.
Hickey said some people were upset with him for confronting the companies about the PFOA contamination because they were worried about their jobs and about the local economy. But when he asked himself if what he was doing was for the best, he went back to thinking about what his Dad would have wanted him to do. His conclusion is that his Dad would have wanted to protect the kids on his bus, and their health is more important than economic considerations.
Hickey said the role that he has played in the PFOA situation has taken him, “way out of my comfort zone,” and he looks forward to being able to step out of the public space that he has found himself in. He said, “I am not a doctor or a lawyer or a scientist,” but he felt certain that he could not be wrong about this. He said it really was not an amazing discovery that he made – it was just a five minute Google search. He said he typed “Teflon” and “Cancer” into Google and read the chain of documents that it brought up. He said once you take the time to read the literature, the danger of PFOA exposure is readily apparent. He said, “There was no good reason for all the delay and resistance that we encountered.”
He concluded by reflecting on the passing of the teflon-related industries that had provided many good jobs in Hoosick Falls for quite a few years. Noting that there are now just two plants and around 200 jobs, he said most of those companies are gone, “and they left us to clean up the mess that they left.”
The audience applauded Mr. Hickey’s testimony.
Dr. Marcus Martinez was at the table with Hickey, and he spoke of his observations of what appears to him to be a higher incidence of cancer than normal in Hoosick Falls, and of his own battle with cancer. Martinez remarked that several other people who worked on the same production line as Hickey’s father died of cancer in their early fifties.
Martinez also said he asked the Village Board in January of 2015 not to send a letter to residents saying it was OK to drink the water, but they did anyway. He said, “residents were advised to drink water that was unsafe for at least twelve months.”
This was one of the primary topics of the hearing – why it took a year from the time when the Village had confirmed that there was PFOA in the water at a level higher than the EPA advisory to the time when residents were advised not to drink the water. The answer from the Village’s point of view is that they were following guidance from the New York State Department of Health, so it was interesting to hear next from the Commissioner of that Department, Howard Zucker.
Zucker said that his agency was following EPA guidance. He said during the year in question the EPA health advisory on PFOA said the level of contamination that should cause concern was 400 parts per trillion, but it said if that standard was exceeded, it recommended his agency “assess, inform, and take steps to reduce the PFOA level.” He said his agency vigorously sought to do those three things during the year from December 2014 to December 2015, but the EPA advisory said nothing about issuing orders not to drink the water if it exceeds the advisory standard.
He said there was a dramatic shift in EPA guidance from the Region 2 office in late November of 2015. They suddenly promulgated a standard of 100 parts per trillion and advised that residents should not drink the water. He said he didn’t know how they came up with the new figure of 100 parts per trillion, or what scientific data it might have been based on.
He said the sudden shift caused “confusion, anxiety, and uncertainty.”
However, he said when EPA policy shifted, within 24 hours his agency issued an advisory in accord with the new EPA policy.
The EPA was not represented at this hearing, although Senator Kemp Hannon said he repeatedly urged them to participate. They sent written comments instead. Many of the Senators expressed disappointment about the EPA not showing up. Senators also said they were disappointed that Saint-Gobain and Taconic did not send representatives to testify at the hearing, and suggested they might eventually have to subpoena the companies to get them to show up.
Zucker said his agency kept the Regional EPA informed about the Hoosick Falls situation starting in December of 2014, and in particular had a meeting with them in July of 2015. He said after researching filtration strategies in the winter of 2015 they undertook with the Village a pilot filtration project, which demonstrated the efficacy of the carbon filters, and they then started negotiations with Saint-Gobain to have them fund a carbon filtration plant for the Village water system.
The Department of Health is conducting a study of cancer incidence in Hoosick Falls, looking at the period from 1995 to 2013. Zucker said a preliminary draft has been sent to experts across the country for comment, and when it has been adequately peer-reviewed, it will be released. He was not ready to specify a time frame for its release, though.
Dr. Martinez called for medical monitoring of those who have PFOA in their blood – ongoing, regular testing for illnesses associated with PFOA exposure. Senator Marchione said she has been writing bills for the next session, one for medical monitoring and one for property tax reduction, but she hasn’t introduced them yet.[/private]