The story of Flint, Michigan has gotten national attention. A series of decisions coming out of Snyder’s ‘government on the cheap’ approach ended up poisoning the water of an entire city of over 100,000 people, with lead leaching from aging pipes. The problem was compounded by months of denial, even though city residents could see, taste, and smell something was seriously wrong. It took national attention for the state to begin dealing with the problem — and only after an outsider sounded the alarm. Snyder has been dodging responsibility ever since.
Unlike Snyder, Cuomo’s actions didn’t create the water problem he’s dealing with — but his administration’s response to it has a lot in common with Snyder’s.
Hoosick Falls, NY is a small community of around 3,500 people. Like many towns in upstate NY, it hit its peak around 1900. The central business district is on the National Register of Historic Places; the town website is headed by a picture of rolling rural Rensselaer County — but it’s a legacy of its industrial past and present that has come back to haunt it.
PFOA is the culprit. It’s a byproduct of making Teflon and other plastic products and it can cause serious health problems.
...The studies concluded that there was probably an association between PFOA exposure and six health outcomes: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and pregnancy-induced hypertension.[7]
The chemical first got public attention when a local became suspicious of what might have caused his father’s fatal health problems. It’s believed to have leached into the town water supply from years of waste dumping, including in a town landfill. It’s not only city water that was contaminated; ground water contamination means people with wells are at risk as well. (And better check those pools and hot tubs.)
The state has stepped in to add new treatment facilities to the town water system, and a program to provide filter systems to people on wells, as well as tracking health issues with a surveillance program — but questions continue. Who knew what, and when, and who has been talking to whom, behind the scenes? Another nearby town has also been found to have water problems.
The latest development to surface is that the Cuomo administration’s Department of Health was slow to respond to the crisis, resisting calls from the EPA to act. From Politico:
ALBANY— While the Cuomo administration has been extensively criticized for its slow reaction to the unfolding Hoosick Falls water pollution crisis, a new trove of emails and meeting notes shows how top state Department of Health officials actively dismissed the Obama administration’s increasingly dire warnings and recommended safe consumption levels.
The Cuomo administration resisted sounding a public alarm even though federal regulators warned senior health department officials that people in Hoosick Falls should be alerted they were drinking water that contained dangerous levels of a chemical linked to cancer and other serious health problems, according to documents recently obtained by POLITICO New York through a Freedom of Information Request.
The rest of the story is even more damning, including this remarkable line:
...health department employees dismissed an advisory limit for human consumption of PFOA set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and argued that their differences with the federal authorities were a matter of “philosophy” and not just science...
Cuomo’s governing style has been the subject of scrutiny before; if the Department of Health was trying to keep a lid on the public health crisis, it’s difficult to believe the Governor was unaware of it.
Meanwhile...
There is a legitimate argument that government has a responsibility to avoid alarming people unnecessarily, that a panic response before the facts are all in is not a good way to serve the public interest. In this case however, it appears action can and should have been taken much sooner. Why it wasn’t is a matter for speculation barring legal action — it’s a certainty no one in the administration is going to speak on the record about this in any meaningful way if they can avoid it.
There’s also the problem of decades of toxic ideology at work to consider. Demands to limit government, demands to cut taxes, demands that government be more “business-friendly” combined with the toxic effects of Big Money have had a corrosive effect. When a problem government should handle comes up these days, too often the first response is “How much is it going to cost?” — and that’s from government leaders who actually believe government should serve the people. As for the rest, too often the reflex is “How do I avoid responsibility and/or blame someone else?”
That’s why there are lawsuits and lawyers — and calls for tort ‘reform’. But as Charles P. Pierce reminds us, there’s a risk: Demand Clean Water, Get Sued for Defamation.
The sun rose in the east this morning, so it's time once again to examine how completely fcked this country's infrastructure is in regards to the most basic function of providing citizens with safe drinking water.
With a quote from the ACLU, Pierce shows how it works:
In the lawsuit, Green Group and Howling Coyote claim that by advocating against hazardous waste in their town, Esther, Ben, Mary, and Ellis have engaged in "defamation" that's harmed them to the tune of a cool $30 million. But the only harm evident in this lawsuit is the gripping terror that average citizens—not scientists or paid policy wonks—feel after being sued for millions for speaking their truth in order to protect their community.
Even if you trust the quality of water coming from your supply, and have been told it passes all the legal requirements for safe use for drinking, washing, etc. — there’s still a joker. Do those requirements cover testing for everything that might be in your water — or just what’s been put into law? Water in Hoosick Falls had been up to standards, but those standards didn’t include testing for PFOA. The EPA has some guidelines, but if you suspect a problem you may have to get your own tests done that address that problem. It’s not just the water either — don’t forget the pipes it travels through.
It just might be worth doing the water equivalent of ‘going off the grid’ and bypassing water supplies and wells completely. You can go for a personal solution, the home solution, or go big. With solar power, the cost of producing water this way is minimal. Having a couple of those self-filling water bottles would be a good thing to add to home emergency supplies — you may have to be your own ‘first responder’ after all — but there’s still a catch. If you live where the humidity is low and/or the air is dirty, getting clean water could still be a problem.