NEWBURGH – Current or past residents of Newburgh or persons who have worked in the city are eligible for free blood testing to determine if they have PFOS in their blood and if so, at what level.
The test was initially offered before COVID and persons wishing to be tested now need not have been tested in the first round.
This testing period expires on Thursday, February 29 and persons wishing to be tested should either call the State Health Department at 518—402-7950 or sign up at www.health.ny.gov/Newburgh.
Washington Lake, the city’s former reservoir, and streams flowing into it, have yet to be remediated by the Department of Defense, since the agency took responsibility for firefighting foam flowing from the Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport.
Jennifer Rawlison, a member of the Newburgh Clean Water Project, noted the remediation has been a slow process.
“You would think with a lot of time passing by that you would be a little bit closer to something, but they haven’t started any cleanup,” she said. “I sit on a national PFAS coalition. It’s daunting to me when I meet all these other communities that are in the same boat and have been going at it longer; some are just entering this realm, and to see the DoD as an entity, I really question the future of all of these sites. There are so many and it really is a big task and it’s going quite slow.”
Since Newburgh’s water source was confirmed as contaminated, the city has been acquiring its water from the New York City Catskill Aqueduct with the State Health Department footing the bill.
Click here to return to the Mid-Hudson Newswebsite.
