Washington Lake
remains offline
WASHINGTON – The Department of Defense released its report on the Stewart Air National Guard Base PFOA contamination of the Newburgh city water supply.
It had been determined that the carcinogenic chemical had leaked into the city’s Washington Lake reservoir on the New Windsor/Town of Newburgh line.
The DoD had refused to take responsibility or commit funding to remediate the problem pending the outcome of their own report even though the state Department of Environmental Conservation had conducted its own study.
Now, the DoD has completed its report, which US Senator Charles Schumer said “was like pulling teeth.” He had been pushing for the DoD to take responsibility for the pollution from day-one.
“This report must be immediately shared with the public and environmental experts so we can quickly understand the extent of the contamination and peruse the quickest and most effective ways to remove these toxins from our drinking water systems,” the senator said on Thursday. “The toxic PFOA threat to public health cannot be allowed to drag on.”
Ever since the city learned of the contamination, City Manager Michael Ciaravino shut off the reservoir and for over a year the state has been paying for Newburgh to secure its drinking water from the New York City Catskill Aqueduct.
The city manager said what the DoD needs to understand is that “this toxic water crisis is a national defense emergency, requiring a rapid response from the very institution sworn to defend us.”
Ciaravino also said the federal agency should be “more forthcoming with producing their records which document a well known history of toxic dumping in and around their land above Washington Lake which has washed down into our precious watershed and directly into our drinking water for a very long time.” And he said the DoD needs to “produce all of their records now, not in another two years.”
