State health and environmental officials provided an update on an ongoing investigation into PFAS contamination to Poestenkill residents Thursday night.
The investigation into PFAS contamination in an area surrounding the Algonquin Middle School continues.
Officials provided an update Thursday on a Zoom call organized by the Concerned Citizens for Clean Drinking Water group.
According to the latest numbers, 89 nearby homes have had private wells sampled for PFOA and PFOS since August 2021. Of that number, 14 homes with PFAS concentrations above New York’s 10 parts per trillion standard have been outfitted with point-of-entry treatment systems. PFAS contamination has been linked to ill health effects including cancer.
Nearby commercial facilities have been identified by the State Department of Environmental Conservation as potential sources of the contamination, but those sites have not yet been investigated. DEC says it will investigate if testing at the middle school indicates a migration of pollution from one or more of the businesses.
Brittany O’Brien-Drake is a DEC geologist:
“Overall, the data we collected during this preliminary investigation did not indicate an obvious source on or off the school property, however additional sampling is warranted,” said O’Brien-Drake.
A POET system has been installed on the middle school but the school remains on bottled water. Richard Elder is Rensselaer County’s Environmental Health Director.
“So that system is up. We are still in the startup phases of it,” said Elder.
Elder said tests show the system to be working effectively and estimates it will be fully operating within 1 to 2 months.
Some sites of interest are not considered likely sources of contamination at the middle school. The Poestenkill landfill was ruled out from samples taken in October, though monitoring continues. Sampling has also led DEC to conclude two manufacturing facilities located two miles north of the middle school are not contributing to the school’s well pollution.
Sampling from monitoring wells at a Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Facility showed low-level concentrations of PFOS and PFOA. DEC and DOH do not believe further action is required at the Saint-Gobain location.
The Dynamic Systems Inc. Superfund site was sampled for PFAS and Volatile Organic Compounds in November. One well sampled at the DSI site showed a PFOA concentration at 23.1 ppt, and PFOS below the 10 ppt threshold, at 6.59.
DEC says while the PFAS contamination at DSI is not impacting drinking water supplies near the middle school, more sampling will be conducted to identify potential exposures near the Superfund site. The state has identified 13 nearby homes on private wells for testing.
As testing continues, Town of Poestenkill Water Manager Robert Brunet announced Thursday night the results from testing requested by a homeowner about a mile from the Algonquin Middle School.
The results, he said, showed an elevated level of PFOA.
“32 parts per trillion, and the location is basically near Weatherwax and Snyders Corners Road, Buchanan [Way], specifically,” said Brunet.
Elder said the county health department will follow up on the result “appropriately.”
Justin Deming of the New York State Department of Health said he was unaware of the new detection.
“You know, we have not seen any levels above the MCLs outside of the investigation area and so we actually have a meeting scheduled for Monday with the agencies – DEC, DOH, and Rensselaer County – to talk about next steps,” said Deming. “As we’ve talked about in the past with many of the community members, sampling for these compounds can be a bit of a tricky thing because they’re very common and we have to be very careful about the sampling procedures. Not that we don’t believe the results, but I think the first step might be to validate those results.”
Poestenkill Town Supervisor Keith Hammond, however, floated one idea as to why the site about a mile from the middle school may have shown elevated PFAS levels.
“That was the site of a lot of construction debris and fill. Before those homes were built, that was actually a low-lying swampy area. So, where all those homes are, they’re all built on top of fill that’s been brought on from outside,” said Hammond.
More information is available here:
https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/remediation_hudson_pdf/poestenkillupdate0222.pdf
