Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Hoosick Falls Releases Settlement with Companies on PFOA Pollution

By Brendan J. Lyons
An $850,000 settlement agreement between the village of Hoosick Falls and two companies blamed for polluting the community's drinking water supplies would cover more than $400,000 in legal and public relations expenses.

The agreement between the village and Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and Honeywell International is intended, in part, to cover many of the village's expenses since the discovery in 2014 that a toxic manufacturing chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, had polluted groundwater that includes the village's public water supply and also numerous private wells around the area.

The agreement will be the subject of a public meeting on Thursday evening in Hoosick Falls. It includes a provision that the village agrees "not to sue and forever discharges SGPP and Honeywell ... for any and all claims which the village now has, or might have in the future, against the corporate releasees relating in any extent to the presence of PFOA in the Village's current municipal water supply."

Nearly half of the $850,000 would be used to cover losses that Mayor David Borge said the village sustained from decreased water and sewer revenues when residents turned to bottled water in late 2015 after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned them to stop drinking the contaminated water. The village also expended money to flush waterlines, repair hydrants, augment its website and issue mailings to residents.
Click here for the full article. 
Source: timesunion.com (via The Empire Report)

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