WHITE PLAINS – Westchester County Executive George Latimer signed two executive orders on Wednesday that mandate biannual groundwater testing for many contaminates, including PFAS and that effectively bans the use of those chemicals in the Westchester County airport as soon s permitted by federal law.
Latimer said those mandates are a matter of his public policy already, but informally. They will be formalized with his executive orders.
County Legislator Nancy Barr will introduce a bill that would codify those executive orders into county law.
In 2018, Latimer reinstated groundwater testing at the county airport for pollutants after the testing program was discontinued in 2011 by the former administration.
PFAS is a class of toxic contaminants, previously used in firefighter training, which pose an emerging threat to drinking water in many areas of the country. The closest example of the contamination is in the Newburgh-New Windsor area where the chemicals from the Stewart Air National Guard Base have contaminated Newburgh’s Washington Lake reservoir and streams in the area.
