Dr. Howard A. Zucker, the state health commissioner, said that the Saint-Gobain plant would be deemed a state Superfund site — giving the state the power to seek reimbursements for the cleanup costs from the source of the pollution — and that private wells in the area would also be tested for PFOA, which some studies have linked to an increased risk for cancer. But the long-term risks are not well known, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency has said there is not enough evidence to classify the chemical as a carcinogen.
On Wednesday, however, Dr. Zucker said that water filtration systems would be placed at schools and other community gathering places. He added that he felt there was no immediate short-term health effect “that we can measure,” though he said his department would be studying long-term data, dating to 1995, to assess whether the exposure to PFOA had made people sick. The state also issued an emergency regulation to classify PFOA as a hazardous substance.
After the warning in December by the E.P.A., many residents of the village of 3,500 began using bottled water provided free at a local supermarket. But worries had arisen long before that, with local residents saying the village had a rash of unusual cancers.
According to a timeline of events posted on the village’s website, the concerns about the water supply in Hoosick Falls first came to local officials’ attention in August 2014, when a resident requested that leaders test the water supply for PFOA.
The State Health Department told village officials that testing would not be necessary. After public pressure, local officials decided to test the water for PFOA anyway, finding that some of the village’s municipal wells contained water with dangerous levels of the compound.
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They identified the likely source of the chemical as a local plant operated by Saint-Gobain, a French company which manufactures Teflon-coated material. Yet even as worry grew in Hoosick Falls, the Health Department told local officials last January that the amount of PFOA that had been found in the water supply “does not constitute an immediate health hazard,” though it recognized a need to “take measures to reduce it.”
In June 2015, tests of the public water supply in Hoosick Falls were found to contain more than 600 parts per trillion of PFOA, according to a November letter from the E.P.A., with levels near the plastics factory going as high as 18,000 parts per trillion. The agency’s Office of Water has issued a provisional health advisory — used for guidance in urgent incidences of contamination — saying that a safe level is 400 parts per trillion.
Mayor David Borge of Hoosick Falls has also been criticized for refusing to recommend that residents stop drinking the water until after the E.P.A. weighed in.
A spokeswoman for Saint-Gobain said the company was paying for a temporary water treatment system and bottled water for residents. It has also retained a lobbying firm with connections in Albany and Washington, Politico reported on Wednesday.