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Hoosick Falls Students Ask Cuomo to Give Them a Clean Water Supply

Hoosick Falls high school senior Anna Wysocki talks to the media Friday
Hoosick Falls high school senior Anna Wysocki talks to the media Friday

High schoolers in Hoosick Falls say they are tired of the slow response by the adults in the community, and government, to toxic substance PFOA which has infiltrated the village water system and made it unsafe to drink.  They took matters into their own hands, holding a press conference and  calling on Governor Cuomo personally to act.

“The adults have done a lot of talking,” said Anna Wysocki , senior class historian. “Now it’s our turn.”

The students, who designed and delivered their own power point presentation to the entire student body at the schools’ auditorium, say the town leaders, as well as state and federal governments, have been too slow to respond to water contamination deemed by the EPA to be so serious that they are no longer allowed to drink , cook or bathe with it.

And they called on Governor Cuomo to act, saying the only acceptable solution is a new water source.

“We want to take a shower without worrying about how soon we should get out,” said Wysocki , in the student’s presentation. “ We want to be able to wash off and eat off our dishes free from the threat of cancer.”

The contaminant is a chemical known as PFOA, used in the manufacturer of Teflon, which has been linked to cancer and other illnesses. It is believed to have infiltrated the town’s water supply  leaking from factories now run by St Gobain and Honeywell.  The EPA declared the water unsafe to use last fall. Governor Cuomo’s Administration, after knowing about the potential problem   for over a year, in late January declared Hoosick Falls a Superfund site, and classified PFOA as a Hazardous substance.  But the students say that’s not enough, they know that simply declaring something a Superfund site does not bring a swift solution, and the designation does not address the needed  filtration of the water, or finding a  new water source.

Cuomo, in his State of the State message four years ago, said he’d be the champion of all students in New York .

“I am also going to be the student lobbyist,” Cuomo said on January 4,  2012.

The students say they take Cuomo at his word, and expect him to put money into his state budget to build a new water supply for the town within the next year. The water at the junior- high school, which sits a mile out of town, has not been declared unsafe but the students  believe it’s only a matter of time before the chemicals seep into the groundwater.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation on Thursday issued a clean up consent order for St Gobain and Honeywell, saying they are legally responsible for damage and remediation.

Hoosick Falls Schools Superintendent Ken Facin , speaking as the grades 6 through 12 filed in for the assembly, says the children are understandably very concerned.

“I think these kids are having a lot of anxiety over this issue,” said Facin, who says the adults have not handled things well.

“This has really not been handled very well at any level,” he said.

Facin, who has a degree in geology,  says the school assembly and press conference was entirely driven by the students, but he says he agrees with their conclusions, that a new water source is needed.

Anna Wysocki, who says people close to her in the town have died from cancer over the years,  says she and the others made up their minds to act after attending a town board meeting on February 9th. She says the last straw came when town officials opted to wait until they received a recommendation from the state health department before taking any action.  She says what the students want is really very simple.

“Other people don’t have to worry about this sort of thing,” Wysocki said. “We just want our lives back how they used to be.”

Cuomo issued a statement later Friday saying that a $10 million state Superfund allocation will be used to plan a possible alternative water supply.

He said  the state will also purchase and install water filtration systems for about 1,500 homes with private wells in the Rensselaer County Town of Hoosick. While no PFOA has been detected in the school district's water supply, the state has committed to installing a water filtration system at the school as the district superintendent has requested.