The Rensselaer County village of Hoosick Falls is considering a new draft of a proposed settlement between the companies deemed responsible for polluting local water supplies and village government. The Thursday evening meeting comes after a previous settlement agreement was tabled amid widespread opposition in January.
In late January, the Hoosick Falls village board heard comments for more than an hour against a proposed settlement agreement between the village and companies Saint-Gobain and Honeywell.
First up at that meeting was environmental attorney David Engel, speaking on behalf of the group Healthy Hoosick Water.
“The settlement would bar any further recovery by the village for damages to its current water system. The settlement should be limited to the costs incurred up to the present time and no more, and any release should be commensurate with that limited degree of compensation,” said Engel.
The previous agreement would have provided $850,000 to the village for costs incurred during the response to the contamination of water supplies with perfluoronated compounds, which have been linked to ill health effects like cancer.
The payment would have covered legal expenses, overtime pay, engineering costs, and a bill to a public relations firm.
The agreement would not cover costs related to the impacts on human health, or the filtration systems on private wells and the village water supply.
Most controversially, the previous agreement would have released the companies from any future liabilities related to the village water system.
The comments prompted village board members to table the agreement. Board member Ben Patton spoke after the community dialogue.
““The people that are here have spoken. They’ve given us information. And I think it would be imprudent of us to listen to everyone and then vote ‘Yes.’ So from my standpoint, if I had to vote right this second, I would vote no,” said Patton.
Now, the village has released details of a second settlement. In addition to paying off three consulting firms, the agreement would include an increase of $153,000 for the village to use at its discretion. The total price tag on the new settlement is about $1.04 million.
As part of the agreement, Hoosick Falls would agree not to sue either company for their role in contaminating three wells and public water with the chemical PFOA.
The wells in question are now being treated with a permanent carbon filtration system.
A statement from the village adds that the “agreement preserves the Village's right to seek indemnification and acknowledges that nothing set forth in the agreement affects any rights and claims any third parties may have against the companies or their predecessors.”
The agreement would allow the village to reserve the right to pursue claims associated with alternative sources of water, extentions or additions to the municipal water system, contaminants other than PFOA, and responding to PFOA contamination on other locations such as the village landfill.
But since the new language was unveiled earlier this week, it’s already drawn sharp criticism from those who say the agreement does not go far enough.
Former Region 2 EPA Administrator Judith Enck, a Rensselaer County resident, wrote to village mayor David Borge saying she had “never seen a more one sided and ill advised legal agreement between a local government and large polluters, as the agreement that is now being considered by the Village of Hoosick Falls.”
PFOA has been found in other communities, including nearby Bennington, Vermont and Petersburgh, New York.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced this week that an investigation found air pollution controls are effectively removing PFOA emissions from the Taconic Plastics facility in Petersburgh.
The state said it would remain involved to hold the company accountable.
