ALBANY – The chemicals PFOS and PFOA aren’t the only ones people who get drinking water from public sources should worry about.
An analysis of federal data by the New York Public Interest Research Group found 16 distinct emerging contaminants detected in public water supplies in the Hudson Valley.
Strontium was detected most frequently, followed closely by chromium-6.
Orange and Westchester counties had the highest number of systems with detections – 69 each. There was 1,4-dioxane detected in four counties and the PFOA and PFOS were detected in Orange County.
NYPIRG Environmental Policy Director Elizabeth Moran said New York must take action now.
“The longer the state goes without emergent contaminant testing, the longer the state goes without drinking water standards, the longer people may end up exposed to unsafe levels of these chemicals. The bottom line is when we don’t act quickly it puts public health in jeopardy.”
Moran confirmed that even the state-installed carbon filtration system at Newburgh’s Washington Lake will not filter out many of those emerging chemicals.
Newburgh Mayor Torrance Harvey is not letting up on the contamination issue working in tandem with the state and federal governments.
“This is some grant funding that we have applied for recently with the New York State Department of Health to get the CDC to do a complete study, not only looking for those chemicals, but also the other possible chemicals in our water source,” Harvey said.
Statewide, NYPIRG found 176 water systems with detections of one or more of the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule contaminants, affecting close to 16 million New Yorkers.
