Washington Lake
NEWBURGH – City officials addressed the public during Monday night’s Newburgh City Council meeting about the PFOS contamination in Washington Lake and the questions surrounding the state of emergency issued last week.
Although city officials are not in complete agreement as to whether or
not the state of emergency action issued by City Manager Michael Ciaravino
should have been called an “emergency” since the levels of
the chemical PFOS in Washington Lake had been identified in 2013 by the
State Department of Health, shared with the public and remained within
the acceptable EPA parts per trillion levels, they assured the public
that they are making the mitigation of the water source’s contaminants
a priority issue.
City Councilman Torrance Harvey said city officials “have to get beyond the semantics and get beyond the disagreement of how and when and where the communication was supposed to happen so that we can just remediate this issue and get to the problem and I think that’s what we all want.”
Additionally, members of the council were upset with the lack of communication, not having had prior notification of the emergency declaration.
Ciaravino acknowledged that there was a communication issue and said he respects the criticisms of the council, but he stands by his decision because since the diversion to Brown’s Pond is a finite water source, he still considers this, in the legal context, to be an emergency.
“I think the word ‘emergency’ is being used, both, as a legal term and also being interpreted, by many in our community and council, as an emotional term and the word emergency does cause alarm,” said Ciaravino. “And so, what I look forward to, going forward, is clarifying those lines of communication, while also understanding that we have an emergency that is going to be with us for as long as these pollutants and these contaminants, continue to wash into our Washington Lake and as that happens, we will continue to experience this problem. So, there’s multiple levels, this problem is not going to go away tomorrow. I still consider it an emergency so long as we are not able to use Washington Lake.”
City officials assure the public that the water that has been diverted from Brown’s Pond is completely free of PFOS contamination and if need be, the city will tap into the Catskill Aqueduct; however, if that were to happen, it will come at a considerable cost to the city.
