
Duty calls in Hoosick Falls: After 500+ days, small group of activists continue fight for clean water
By Tyrone Heppard
Published on Truth Against the Machine June 25, 2017
There is no question that the drinking water in the riverside village of Hoosick Falls, NY is tainted, and residents’ blood tests clearly show some of them have 30 times the normal rate of a cancer-causing chemical in their blood. All of that’s been confirmed.
Now, activists living in the small rural community have two straightforward questions: when will they get clean water, and how might the high levels of the chemical found in their blood might affect their health in the future.
Some steps have been taken, but members of the grassroots NY Water Project: Silvia Potter, Charlene Frey, Michelle O’Leary, Jennifer Plouffe, and Michele Baker say little has been done to improve the situation and they will continue to demand answers.
May 11 marked 500 days since residents first learned a carcinogen called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) was in their drinking water. On that day, the NY Water Project went to Albany and held a press conference to remind state officials.
“I’m sorry, I’m not going to take it,” Baker said. “You’re not going to be two of the largest multi-national corporations on the planet and poison 65-square-miles to oblivion. It’s not going to happen.”
The discovery
In 2014, Hoosick Falls resident Michael Hickey decided to pay to have his water tested after his father, John Hickey, died from kidney cancer in 2013 at the age of 68. Hickey said he didn’t drink or smoke. Plus, over the years, other people in his village had gotten sick, so after he Googling “cancer” and “teflon,” he had his water tested.
Testing would reveal traces of PFOA in the water over the federally-recognized limit of 400 parts per trillion. Subsequent testing would find levels 45 times higher in groundwater near a plant in the village owned by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics.
Those responsible
As a division of the French multinational Saint-Gobain corporation, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics makes a number of products, some of which require polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), commonly known as Teflon, to make. The chemical is used in products like non-stick cookware and in the special foam firefighters use to snuff out a blaze.
One of the chemicals used to make PTFE is PFOA. In 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency launched the PFOA Stewardship Program to phase out the use of the chemical by 2015 due to serious health and ecological concerns including links to cancer and its long-lasting presence in the environment. Don’t get too excited, though: compliance was voluntary.
Saint-Gobain has operated in Hoosick Falls since 1996 at the same plant that had been previously owned and operated by a few other companies that used PTFE in the past, including Allied Signal a company acquired in 1999 by Honeywell International, the same company ordered to clean up the heavily polluted Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, NY.
Saint-Gobain maintains it has never manufactured PTFE in Hoosick Falls — it’s only ever purchased it from other companies to make stuff. The company also claims it hasn’t used PTFE with PFOA in it since 2003. Honeywell released a statement about how Allied Signal did testing before it sold the factory, but wasn’t required to test for PFOA at that time.
Great. So when will residents get clean water? How does the contamination affect their health?
Delayed reaction
Though Hickey’s work had confirmed alarming amounts of PFOA in the village’s water supply, it would be roughly a year and a half before either the company or the state would begin to react to this water crisis; even after the federal Environmental Protection Agency advised against drinking the water.
Furthermore, even with the support of former EPA Administrator Judith Enck, it took until in February 2016, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) determined both Saint-Gobain and Honeywell International were responsible for the contamination and since then, the village and the corporations have been negotiating a settlement over how much they’re going to have to pay to remedy this disaster.
In early April, as part of the 2018 state budget, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed “Clean Water Infrastructure” legislation that sets aside $2.5 billion for municipalities that need to make any types of upgrades to improve sewer and drinking water systems.
Members of the NY Water Project said experts have told them they think it would cost about $25 million to connect Hoosick Falls to the Tomhannock Reservoir, a new untainted water source less than 30 miles away in the city of Troy, NY where officials say they are more than willing to help.
So far, the state has given the village $220,000 in grants which it would have to pay back should they receive money from Saint-Gobain and Honeywell. In the meantime, the Hoosick Falls has spent $1 million on remedial efforts and Cuomo has decided to set aside $15 million for a gondola, a glorified lift system that would move visitors around the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse. You know, because priorities.
“That’s why we were in the capital … marking 500 days of no action and no money,” Baker said. “I need $25 million to get 3,000 people clean, safe drinking water and our governor put ($15) million for an amusement park ride. It’s insulting.”
Something that also came out of the budget process was the Drinking Water Quality Control Council, a 12-person board of scientists, officials and others that will be tasked with informing the state Department of Health (DOH) and the DEC of chemicals they should start to monitor. It was reported the council’s first meeting was to take place this month, but is yet to happen.
One more thing: right now, Saint-Gobain and Honeywell are doing a study to see how “feasible” it would be to connect Hoosick Falls to the clean water source in Troy. In case you missed it, the companies responsible for fixing this disaster get to decide whether getting clean water to residents is worth it.
“What happens if they decide it’s not feasible because it’s in their best interest to not have it be feasible, because they would have to pay for it if it was,” Plouffe said. “Why are you letting the people who polluted the village have that responsibility? It makes no sense to me.”
Findings are due out this summer. That should be interesting.
Reports haven’t necessarily found checks from Saint-Gobain and Honeywell made out to these state senators, but there are curious coincidences such as O’Mara’s connection to Barclay Damon, a lobbying and legal firm that has represented Honeywell in the past. Or how Marchione curiously killed her own bill, one that would have allowed residents harmed by pollution (like her constituents) to take polluters (like Saint-Gobain and Honeywell) to court.
Frey said she went and confronted Marchione after that vote.
“I asked her why she flip-flopped on that,” she said. “She said it was because of her constituents, (that) she needs to listen to all of us. I asked her who were the ones who were opposed to it and I couldn’t get an answer. She’s easily swayed at times and I wonder who was opposed and why.”
One legislator who has been sticking up for the village has been Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) who back in March asked Hannon why he hasn’t acknowledged the residents’ formal request for documents his company subpoenaed from Saint Gobain and Honeywell.
Holyman, who has seen the documents, said he believes residents deserve to know what is in those documents.
However Hannon has said not only does he know nothing about any stinkin’ letter (O’Leary emailed it to him. It’s right here), anyone with a “legitimate interest” has already seen the documents.
Apparently, residents poisoned with elevated levels of carcinogens in their bodies don’t make the cut.
Before then, then-Mayor David Borge was quoted on the record as saying drinking the water was a “personal choice.”
Coincidentally, residents learned last month the that Borger racked up almost $500,000 in legal fees apparently to review media reports and to provide the mayor with his speeches and his talking points.
It should be noted that this legal firm, FitzGerald Morris Baker Firth in Glens Falls, NY, literally bought out the soon-to-be-ex village attorney, John R. Patterson Jr., by acquiring his law firm. The firm was also hired to represent the village during the talks that yielded that terrible $1 million settlement proposal.

Botched execution
In the short term, it seems as if officials have only been going through the motions and telling people what they want to hear rather than making a sincere effort to provide the village with a clean drinking water source.
The NY Water Project says Information has been hard to come by and often has to be asked for repeatedly. Officials who promised to work closely with residents are near impossible to reach or disappear for weeks at a time.
“The response has been sluggish,” Potter said. “If this had’ve happened in Downtown Manhattan we would’ve had clean water within hours. The voter pool here is small. The village (and surrounding town of Hoosick) has … about 7,500 people or more. It’s predominantly Republican and it’s economically depressed. So that translates to very few campaign donations and not for the right cause. We believe that’s part of why the response is a bit underwhelming.”
For example, in early 2016, residents who rely on underground wells for their drinking water learned the point-of-entry treatment (POET) systems installed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) contained parts which were, themselves, linked to cancer. Baker, who lives in the town of Hoosick relies on well water, said she went through the terribly flawed process and, while eventually the right equipment was installed, it took a minute for it to get done properly.
“They put in leaded … valves instead of potable water valves,” she said. “Carbon backed up into our fixtures. I think they were at my house an average of 17 times before they got it right.”
Small granulated activated carbon (GAC) filters have been installed in people’s homes and a much larger version of the the same device has been installed at the village’s water treatment plant. Think of the GAC filters as larger versions of the water filters people put on their taps at home.
Baker said while this may sound all well and good, it’s safe to say she has not yet been compelled to drink the water. The reason: the filters aren’t good enough.
“In our basement are two tanks that are about five and a half feet tall,” she said. “However, they only put less PFOA in your water. Less poison. My well comes back consistently at 1.78 (parts per billion). That’s 1.77 too high.”
Plouffe agreed, saying it’s the GACs have here just as concerned as she was the day she learned about the contamination.
“What do you do with those filters that are contaminated with PFOA,” she asks. “What do you do with those GAC filters that are being changed? Those are going to the landfill, that’s my understanding, which is heavily polluted with PFOA. It’s pretty wild.”
Village workers have questions, too. Josh Magisano, the village’s assistant water plant operator, said though the GAC system went online, they’re still in the middle of trying to figure out when they’re supposed to replace the carbon in the GAC when it’s worn out.
Another person in a different department who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he shared Plouffe’s concern not just because of the heavily polluted landfill, but because the landfill has been known to leak stuff into the nearby Hoosick River in the past.
Little support from locals
Plouffe, who grew up in the area moved back from Virginia to be closer to her parents and bought her home in the village in November 2016.
For more than a month, she used the water. The rescue dogs she brought with her began vomiting and having seizures soon after being exposed to the water. She unwittingly used that water to cook meals for herself and her family.
“I rented the home that I bought from Oct. 1 to the day I closed which was Nov. 10,” Plouffe said. “The day I closed on my home was when the story broke to the public that there was a problem with the water. I was taken all over the village and not one word about the water issue.”
After learning about the contamination, Plouffe said she found out the homeowner knew about the water. She contacted the bank’s appraiser who asked, “what difference would it have made,” if she had known about the PFOA. She confronted the real estate agent she worked with in front of his colleagues at a party. He openly denied even knowing her.
“I moved, bought a new home, and started a new job — which was very stressful anyway — to finding out that I had landed right in the middle of an environmental catastrophe,” she said. “There was no celebration. There was no house warming party. I kind of just put my advocacy hat on.”
She added by speaking out and working toward a solution, she inadvertently made enemies and the people from the community she grew up in started viewing her as an outside rabble-rouser trying to stir up trouble.
“My intentions were pure when I found out what was going on,” she said. “ My intention was to help other community members and to help figure out how to kind of fix this. My intentions were pure. Too bad the water wasn’t.”
Of the women who spoke to the tainted water, only Baker is originally from the area. Potter moved to Hoosick Falls four years ago and O’Leary moved there around four years ago. That doesn’t mean they haven’t faced the same criticism from those they went to work for.
O’Leary said once she and the others heard the news, they took it upon themselves to begin delivering water and information (when they could get it) to their fellow residents.
“We started delivering water in December,” she said. “We talked to an 85-year-old guy living in a third floor apartment who at the end of February had just found out about not drinking the water. My phone would ring from 7 (a.m.) to 10 (p.m.). ‘Who do I call to get blood work done?’ ‘Who do I call to get my water tested.’ We were their lifeline. These are all things that should not have been our responsibility but we made it our responsibility because no one else seemed to care.”
Soon after, the pushback started, O’Leary said.
“I was called by the police chief and questioned about what my intentions are,” she said. “They tried to talk me out of even doing the water deliveries. I even had one guy call me and berate me on the phone for over 20 minutes. He said, ‘I’m not originally from here but my girlfriend is and she doesn’t know your name and she doesn’t know who you are and usually outsiders are here to cause trouble.”
A few months later O’Leary said she stopped doing water deliveries: partly because doing the government’s job as a mom on a tight budget got to be too much, partly because some of her fellow residents didn’t appreciate the persistence of the NY Water Project.
She added in spite of pushback from those who wish she would shut up or go away, she will continue to call for accountability and a clean water source for all of her neighbors, especially those who have the most to lose.
“That’s my big thing,” O’Leary said. “I don’t come from a rich background. I don’t come from a ton of money. Those people tend to get forgotten. I’ve spent the last two years of my life stressed out, depressed, feeling guilty about moving my kids here. Every time some body has a bloody nose or doesn’t feel good … you worry about these things. I have kids here. That’s enough of an investment for me.”

Not giving up
There are certainly more factors that have contributed to the lack of urgency on behalf of state officials and corporation and more theories as to why, but that’s not what the NY Water Project want to talk about today. The only discussion they want to have going forward is about clean drinking water for their community.
Certainly, things have not been improving as fast as she and others in the NY Water Project would’ve wanted, but the small steps in the right direction the group has achieved are viewed as huge victories, particularly for a bunch of self-described “accidental activists” who knew nothing of organizing and advocacy before this water crisis was thrust upon them.
Another hard truth is that Hoosick Falls is not the only community where PFOA and other contaminants are in people’s drinking water, and Baker encouraged people everywhere to do what they can to get transparency, accountability, and ultimately clean air and water in those communities.
“You gotta just look beyond that,” she said. “Activism is knowing that you’re doing the right thing. What we’ve done in Hoosick Falls has now affected change across the whole of New York State. Every community in New York State … over 50,000 will test for emerging contaminants. I have a Drinking Water Quality Council, $2.5 billion going anywhere in New York State where it’s needed over eight years for clean, safe drinking water. Take that to the bank. So to all you … who say, ‘no’, there’s all my yeses.”
