Queensbury residents who have had to drink bottled water for years due to PFAS exposure may soon get to use their taps again.
In 2020, tests on well water in the Jenksinville Water District revealed around 150 homes were exposed to 1,4-dioxane as well as PFA – so-called “forever chemicals,” that have been linked to ill-health effects, including some forms of cancer.
In 2021, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation released a report that outlined the initial testing results that found PFAS and 1,4-dioxane were present in the drinking water, though the levels did not exceed state standards at that time.
That report also did not identify any singular source of the contamination, but the impacted neighborhood sits downhill from a number of closed landfills.
As a result of the contamination, the town and New York state have been providing bottled water to residents since last year. But now, a new infrastructure project will allow residents to one day safely resume drinking from their taps.
On Monday, the Queensbury Town Board unanimously approved a consolidation of the Jenkinsville water district into the town’s greater water district.
Kristina Tucker moved to the impacted neighborhood in 2020 and in recent years has become a public advocate for her community. She addressed the Town Board ahead of the consolidation vote.
“For six plus years Jenkinsville residents have lived with uncertainty about the safety of our drinking water and are forced to live on bottles of water. Although we are very thankful to the water provided to us since the end of last year, questions still remain about the safety of our family members still bathing in this water,” said Tucker.
The town received a state grant that will cover 70% of the estimated $4.4 million project. The board also approved a $3.4 million bid to C.T. Male Associates with a project timeline due in the near future.
Town Supervisor John Strough noted the significance of Monday’s approvals, as recent public discussions had seen tensions boil over.
“Part of the problem for the heated nature of some of the public discussions—they don’t understand the intricacies and the involvement with state agencies and working out the logistics of getting it up there. For example, we couldn’t move until we got the state comptroller’s office’s approval. We have made phone calls, we have people that know people in the comptroller’s office. We tried every card that we could bring up from under our sleeve: six months,” said Strough.
Strough said he’s happy to finally get the ball moving.
“This is a huge project, one of the largest projects I’ve ever been involved in. it took a lot of work. I’ve got a pile of paperwork this high. I’ve got hundreds of hours into this. It’s good to see this come to a conclusion,” said Strough.
Still, Tucker said she won’t be able to relax until she’s got clean water running from her tap.
“My kids are getting a bit older now, they’re in their teens, but when they were younger I would say to them, ‘make sure you keep your mouth closed when you go in the shower, don’t ingest the water.’ And we also just don’t know what kind of things are being absorbed through their skin. So, there’s that fear that you just live with on a continual basis of, you know, is this effecting their life-long health, and we just don’t know,” said Tucker.
Melissa Cadarette, a cancer nurse at Glens Falls Hospital, says the fear of PFAS exposure impacts many aspects of her daily life.
“It’s everything. From washing your dishes, brushing your teeth. Cooking – you gotta wash your vegetables. People have gardens, people are watering their flowers. It’s us the humans and the wildlife too out there. You’re bathing in it every day,” said Cadarette.
Cadarette has lived in the Jenkinsville neighborhood for 16 years – she says the consolidation has been a long time coming.
“We have cancer in our family. It’s struck our family. And we’ve had some animals pass but you can’t say that it came from that. I had a benign sarcoma on my neck, kind of a rare thing. We’ll never know, you don’t know, you can’t prove something like that. But it’s nerve wracking and we’re happy to see that something is finally going to happen,” said Cadarette.
Town officials said the main lines should be completed by the end of this year, with homes connected to clean water by the end of 2027.
