U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to immediately conduct a public health assessment of the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics site in Hoosick Falls and surround communities amid ongoing water contamination issues there.

Such an assessment would allow the CDC to conduct a comprehensive review necessary to develop a public health action plan to address the contamination crisis, according to Gillibrand’s office.

In a letter to the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Gillibrand called on the agency to conduct needed research to help residents understand the health effects of exposure to elevated levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).

“As you know, studies indicate that exposure to PFOA over certain levels may result in adverse health effects, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, kidney cancer, testicular cancer, liver damage, low birth weight, immune system impacts, and other serious health effects,” Gillibrand wrote. “However, these health effects are not well understood, and more research is needed to clarify and expand upon current research findings.”

The letter notes that state Department of Health-conducted testing has revealed elevated PFOA levels in the blood of a number of residents in the area.

Gillibrand’s letter follows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s placement of the Saint-Gobain site in the eastern Rensselaer County village on the federal Superfund National Priorities List. The designation is a precursor to full Superfund status, which would unlock federal resources to help clean up contaminated areas in Hoosick Falls and allow the federal government to seek reimbursement and assistance from companies found responsible for the pollution.

New York already has designated the plant as a state Superfund site.

Saint-Gobain used PFOA at its plants until December 2014.

Gillibrand visited Hoosick Falls in July for a listening session with residents of that village and nearby Petersburgh, which is dealing with PFOA contamination problems of its own. At the time, she said she was seeking to have PFOA tested under the Toxic Substances Control Act. She also said law allowing for medical monitoring of 9/11 first responders should be rewritten to include residents affected by water contamination.

“A lot of these illnesses like cancers take 20 years to develop, but because they’ve done this medical monitoring, they now know exactly which cancers are caused by the toxins that were released at the 9/11 site,” she said. “And so we have something that we can model, hopefully, our state law after.”

Gillibrand’s full letter is below: