Hoosick Falls

Residents in this factory village packed the high school Thursday night to learn more about a dangerous chemical that contaminated their water system and stoked fears about whether it's caused what many believe is a high rate of unusual and aggressive forms of cancer.

"I'm very, very sorry that you have been going through this," Judith Enck, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional administrator, told the audience. "I'm sorry that we don't know how long you have been drinking contaminated water. ... No medical studies or surveys have been done in Hoosick Falls. Action should be taken to protect your health."

The focus of the contamination has been a Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics manufacturing plant. The small factory, the village's largest employer with about 125 workers, is on a hill overlooking the Hoosick River, about 400 yards from village well fields. The company owns a second plant in the village with about 75 workers.

The standing-room-only meeting took place hours after the state Department of Environmental Conservation and state Health Department jointly called on the EPA to add Saint-Gobain's McCaffrey Street plant "and other possible sources of contamination" in the village to the federal Superfund program and "undertake a full environmental investigation to address the sources of contamination."

Enck, who organized the informational meeting, has urged village leaders to warn residents to stop drinking the water and limit other exposure. Mayor David B. Borge had previously said it was a "personal choice" whether to consume the water, which comes from underground wells serving about 4,500 consumers.

Elevated levels of the toxic chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, were found in the system in 2014 by Michael Hickey, a former village trustee whose father died of cancer. Hickey sent water samples to a Canadian lab that reported levels of PFOA that the EPA later said are not safe for human consumption.

The audience applauded loudly when David Engel, a lawyer for a grassroots citizens group formed to help educate residents about the pollution, referred to Hickey as a "hero."

Saint-Gobain officials said there has been no determination on the source of the contamination, but the McCaffrey Street plant they bought in 1999 used PFOA for decades, and levels as high as 18,000 parts per trillion were found in the groundwater under the plant. EPA's guideline is 400 PPT for short-term exposure, which many health officials and experts say is not strict enough.

"The use of PFOA in our facilities in the past was limited to small amounts that were present in some of the raw materials that were supplied to us by others," said Dina Silver Pokedoff, company spokeswoman. "In December 2014, we eliminated altogether the use of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) containing PFOA in our Hoosick Falls facility."

The firm's decision to stop using PFOA at its Hoosick Falls plants took place the same month that Saint-Gobain told the EPA that PFOA had been found in the public water system.

The state Health Department last month issued a fact sheet to residents downplaying the health risks of the toxic chemical. But Thursday, the state took a stronger stand and called on the EPA to set stricter standards on the acceptable levels of PFOA in drinking water. The state also said it would begin "an investigation of the incidence of cancer among village residents."

Hoosick Falls has had number of manufacturing plants dating to the early 1800s, including other plants that used PFOA or similar synthetic chemicals. In the last three months, the Times Union has interviewed current and former residents who suspect the drinking water may have caused cancer or other serious effects for themselves or relatives.

Sarah Armour, whose mother, Janice Marie Polacek, was born and raised here, told the Times Union her family was suspicious when Polacek, a non-smoker, died at 42 from brain cancer.

"She was only 39 years old when she began to have horrible headaches and dizzy spells," Armour said. "A CT scan of her brain showed a huge mass that turned out to be a metastasis from an extremely rare and aggressive form of cancer, carcinoma of the thymus. She underwent radiation, chemotherapy, and even a tumor debulking open chest surgery, but ultimately died ... I recall when she was first diagnosed, my father saying something about a plant near her childhood home that he suspected might have contributed to her unlikely development of cancer. Even back then, over 25 years ago, he knew something was not right about it."

The EPA's Enck said government agencies need to determine the source and extent of water pollution, including if it has contaminated private wells.

"A very detailed study of groundwater is needed in Hoosick Falls to know what we are dealing with and how to best address it," she told the audience. "There also needs to be sampling in the Hoosic River."

Dr. Marcus E. Martinez, who runs a family medical practice here, said he and his father, who opened the practice in 1956, have noted rare and aggressive forms of cancer in patients, as well as thyroid diseased and other health problems.

PFOA is a man-made chemical used to make non-stick and other household and commercial products that are heat-resistant and repel grease and water. Under a deal with the EPA, major PFOA makers began phasing out its use in 2006. PFOA exposure has been linked to increased health effects, including testicular and kidney cancer and thyroid disease.

Last week, village trustees voted to have temporary filters installed on the water system. A long-term plan to install a charcoal filter system expected to remove PFOA from the water is set to be done later this year. Saint-Gobain has offered to pay to install and maintain the filter, and has also paid for residents to get free water from a local supermarket.

Julia DiCorleto, a general manager who oversees Saint-Gobain's Hoosick Falls plants, said the soil-testing it did around the McCaffrey Street plant showed low levels of PFOA in the soil, which may indicate water pollution came from a source other than their plant. But the company's tests also showed extremely high levels of PFOA in the groundwater under the plant site, which includes an aquifer believed to feed the village's underground well system.

Saint-Gobain officials said their decision to help the village does not represent any acknowledgement of responsibility for the PFOA pollution.

A science panel formed as a result of class-action litigation in the Ohio Valley with DuPont, one of the primary manufacturers of PFOA, conducted a comprehensive study of the health effects of exposure and concluded the chemical has a "probable link" to six diseases: kidney cancer; testicular cancer; ulcerative colitis; thyroid disease; preeclampsia/pregnancy-induced hypertension; and medically diagnosed high cholesterol.

Last fall, one of the first cases to go to trial resulted in a $1.6 million judgment for a woman who lost a kidney attributed to PFOA exposure. Five other cases in the litigation may go to trail beginning this year.

blyons@timesunion.com • 518-454-5547 •