Residents Still Concerned About Water Quality

NEWBURGH – Following the latest of the City of Newburgh’s PFOS public meetings Monday evening, residents are still uneasy about the quality of the city’s drinking water and the state blood testing initiative.

The water being supplied to Newburgh through the Catskill Aqueduct has been tested as “non-detect” for PFOS and PFOA; that water has been supplied to Newburgh residents since May 2 and Newburgh City Manager Michael Ciaravino maintains it is the cleanest water Newburgh has had.

Mayor Judy Kennedy said the fact that there is still fear about the quality of the water currently being supplied to the city despite the fact that there have been multiple forums and reports corroborating that the drinking water is safe for consumption, warrants more community intervention on the city’s part.

“I believe we are going to have to go where the people are, versus having the people try to come to meetings,” said Kennedy. “We probably need to start doing the church circuit, from Sunday to Sunday to Sunday, from different churches. We need to get into the schools probably, and the school assemblies, because there are too many people not getting the message and are fearful for their children and themselves.”

Naja Fandal, who works at a local pediatrician’s office, said she estimates hundreds of parents have come in to her office concerned for their children’s health and questioning whether blood testing is necessary and whether they can expect adverse health reactions to their children’s exposure to the contaminated water. Fandal, frustrated by not having an answer for these parents besides that the water is currently safe to drink, echoed those same concerns herself in reference to the ambiguity of symptomology from PFOS exposure.

“You can’t give me anything for it. You can’t tell me that do this, this, this to prevent it from getting worse, to prevent it from accumulating more,” said Fandal. “You can’t tell me to do anything to prevent it, once I have it, getting worse. You can’t say take this pill, drink this to make it get any better; so, it’s kind of like I’m between a rock and a hard place.”

Concern, like Fandal’s, comes from the reality that, even it tested for PFOS exposure, the only information gained is a number, or contamination level: something that means very little to the layperson.

The state has acknowledged this and according to the Director of the Division of Environmental Health Assessment Center for Environmental Health of the State Department of Health Betsy Lewis-Michl, due to the lack of empirical data regarding causality of illness from PFOS and PFOA contamination, blood testing is recommended solely as a means for individuals who wish to know their contamination level to find it out.

“The reason to get your blood tested is if you feel that knowing your specific level is information you really want, but knowing that level, we can’t correlate it with a certain health effect and, just in the same way, if somebody is suffering from an illness also getting their blood level is probably not really going to tell them that much more about their illness,” said Lewis-Michl.

The good news is, data gathered from other parts of the country where PFOS and PFOA exposure had already been gathered and evaluated, such as in Decatur, Alabama where the Tennessee River was polluted by the same chemicals and those residents had been tested, City of Newburgh blood test patients can cross-reference their levels with the levels of others who had been tested in those areas to get an idea of the severity of their exposure. This data will be provided in information packets to recipients of the blood tests and their personal physicians. Also, all local physicians have been provided with data packets form the state regarding how to interact with, and inform, their patients regarding PFOS exposure.

Lewis-Michl added that the levels they have been finding in residents of Newburgh should not yield adverse health effects.

A carbon filtration system is currently under construction at the Newburgh water plant, which state engineers believe will be highly effective in treating the water when the water supply is shifted back to the city from the Catskill Aqueduct. Since PFOS does not like to reside in sediment, experts are confident the carbon filtration method will be the method of ensuring safe drinking water.