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Nassau Asks EPA For More PFOA Testing At Dewey Loeffel Site

PFOA formula

The Nassau town supervisor is calling for additional EPA testing for the manufacturing chemical PFOA at the Dewey Loeffel Superfund site in Rensselaer County.

With an uptick in public concern about contaminants in water, several wells were tested around the Dewey Loeffel Superfund site in Rensselaer County. The tested wells are not used for drinking water. Initial results showed very low levels of PFOA contaminants impacting groundwater.  That finding troubled Nassau Town Supervisor David Fleming. Fleming contend the Environmental Protection Agency's testing procedure combined multiple well sources into one sampling area, which he believes could have diluted the PFOA impacts.

Fleming decided to call on the EPA to conduct re-do testing.    "But do it at each well head, so we can determine where the PFOA contamination is, how high it is, and if it’s high enough, that we need to then go out and start testing wells in the area, including residential wells, to make sure folks are protected."

Fleming thinks rural communities have been easy targets, bearing the brunt of decades of economic and environmental injustice.   "Folks have seen that you make bad mistakes in the past and they come back to haunt you in the future, and certainly the failed remediation of the Loeffel Superfund Site over the decades has contributed for our communities impact on these issues and y'know, if you don't have clean water, you don't have a viable community. These are issues that are spreading I think around upstate and because of decisions that were made years ago."

With nearby communities grappling with water contamination, this month, the EPA announced new lifetime exposure guidelines for PFOA and PFOS at 70 parts per trillion.

Joel Beauvais, Deputy Assistant Administrator with EPA's Office of Water, told WAMC the new numbers reflect the most recent science and testing.  “These will supercede the prior values and should be protective over the course of a lifetime of exposure, including sensitive populations.”

Beauvais added the numbers will allow governments to make the appropriate determinations and next steps.

Fleming hopes communities can learn from past mistakes: his goal now, while waiting for word back from the EPA, is simply to protect the residents.    "A number of homes around the site who have been affected by other contaminants over the past several decades already have carbon filters on those systems, which, in Petersburgh and Hoosick Falls have shown to be quite effective, and the water treatment facility at the Loeffel site is state of the art, in fact, I think it's probably even better than the one they're putting in at Hoosick Falls."

According to Fleming, from 1952 through 1968, an estimated 46,000 tons of toxic industrial waste, including PCBs and industrial solvents, were dumped at the Loeffel site, which was added to the federal Superfund list in 2011. Since then, numerous investigations and cleanup actions were performed at the site by the polluters and the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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