U.S. Senator Charles Schumer says the Department of Defense will send two officials to Newburgh, New York, this month to hold a town hall meeting with area residents. The officials plan to talk about their efforts to help stem the city’s PFOS water contamination.
Schumer says Assistant Secretary of the Air Force John Henderson and Air National Guard Director Lieutenant General L. Scott Rice will visit Stewart Air National Guard Base and then hold a community meeting. In December, the Department of Defense said it would implement an interim remedial measure at the outfalls at the base, at Recreation Pond, where some of the highest PFOS concentrations have been found. The two DoD officials are slated to be in Newburgh April 18. Schumer says they will brief the public about the remedial measure and invite questions. Henderson and the assistant secretary of defense visited Newburgh in November, marking their first public forum since the contamination was found in 2016.
