Albany

Trying to address a potential public health concern as well as widespread anxiety in a Rensselaer County community, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration on Wednesday said the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant in the village of Hoosick Falls will be declared a state Superfund site.

The designation extends from an emergency regulation, issued Wednesday, that will allow state to list perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, a toxic chemical that has been found in elevated levels in the village's water supply, as a hazardous substance.

Superfund authority allows the state to investigate the extent of any contamination, and to begin remediation immediately.

State Health Commissioner Howard A. Zucker said the state will initiate a health-risk analysis, re-test private wells in the village and install filters at schools and other gathering places.

The emergency regulations followed an unannounced private meeting Wednesday afternoon at the Capitol between the governor and school and government leaders from Hoosick Falls.

"We found a way for the state to take action which I believe is immediate and will ultimately be conclusive," Cuomo said in an interview with the Times Union.

The governor said the situation in Hoosick Falls was similar to the state's recent experiences with the Ebola virus and Legionnaires Disease, situations in which the impact of very real health threats were worsened by sometimes overblown public fears.

"In Hoosick Falls, there was misinformation, conflicting information," he said, "and it appeared to be a situation that was getting out of control, and people (were) getting anxious. After anxiety comes anger, and the misinformation in and of itself can be destructive."

Cuomo said the fear had emerged primarily "within the community — 'What is this? How dangerous is it? How sick am I, how sick are my kids?' And they can talk themselves into a situation that then gets reported in papers where nobody wants to move to Hoosick Falls, and the homes in Hoosick Falls are unsaleable. And people are now disrupted in a way that has nothing to do with reality."

Wednesday's meeting took place after the Times Union reported that school and town leaders have been frustrated, in part, with their dealings with the state Health Department, which is leading efforts to test private wells in that area for contamination. The agency was informed of the toxic pollution in December 2014, but did not begin testing water supplies in that area until last July.

At a hastily called news conference following Wednesday's meeting, Zucker sidestepped questions about why his agency had instructed village leaders in Hoosick Falls for more than a year that the levels of the toxic chemical found in the water were safe for normal use. The Health Department changed its position last month, in part, after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned that the water was unsafe for drinking or cooking.

Up to that point, Hoosick Falls Village Mayor David Borge had been telling village residents it was a "personal choice" whether to consume the water.

The meeting with the governor included Borge, Hoosick Falls school Superintendent Kenneth Facin, Hoosick Town Supervisor Mark Surdam, Acting DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos and state Sen. Kathy Marchione, R-Halfmoon.

Elevated levels of 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 EPA has established a guideline that a level of 400 parts per trillion is a safe level for "short-term" consumption of the water. But EPA officials said the agency is expected to lower that level significantly this year. Meanwhile, other states have set far lower acceptable levels of PFOA in public water systems, including New Jersey, which has set a level of 40 ppt.

Zucker said the state Health Department is reviewing its position and will set a new safety limit in the coming weeks on the acceptable levels of PFOA for drinking water. The state's action comes as Hoosick Falls this week began installing temporary filters on its water-treatment plant that supplies water to several thousand customers.

"I think we have taken this very seriously," Zucker said, "and what happens is once we have a number ... obviously we are trying to be, and will be, more aggressive in bringing the level down from 400 (ppt). There hasn't been any health effects that we've noticed on this."

However, 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. Martinez is also the Hoosick Falls school physician, but he was not allowed to attend Wednesday's meeting with the governor, a person briefed on the matter said. In December, the Times Union reported many residents in the village and town believe their community has been afflicted by rare and aggressive forms of cancer and thyroid disease.

In the news conference, Seggos noted the Superfund designation "exists to enable the DEC to go out and spend money against the state Superfund remedial work. We then go after the polluter to recover those monies."

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.

Although the source of the contamination has not been identified, officials have focused on the Saint-Gobain plant, which is near several wells that supply Hoosick Falls' water treatment plant. The small factory, which Saint-Gobain bought in 1999, used the chemical for decades and is the village's largest employer with about 125 workers. The firm owns a second plant in the village with about 75 workers.

Saint-Gobain used PFOA at its plants until December 2014, when it stopped using the chemical. Its own water tests, done as a result of Hickey's discovery, included results that showed levels of PFOA at 18,000 ppt in the groundwater under its McCaffrey Street plant — several hundred yards from the village's well fields.

The governor's intervention on Wednesday came two weeks after the state 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." The state's sudden call for action came on the same day a vocal citizens group, Health Hoosick Water, had scheduled a meeting at the local high school on the contamination. The informational meeting included officials with the state Health Department officials and EPA and drew a crowd of hundreds.

Health Hoosick Water leaders in December said they were frustrated because state and village leaders were declining to heed their warnings about the potential dangers of PFOA in the drinking water.

"I think that we've been very proactive with this right from the very beginning," Borge said at the Capitol news conference. "... This has been a very difficult time, there's no question about it. It's been traumatic for folks not just in terms of health issues ... but just in terms of the fear that people have had and the concerns. Now we have something concrete we can go forward and show people that steps are being taken."

"I am excited about what happened today and very appreciative," said Facin, the Hoosick Falls school superintendent.

Saint-Gobain's decision to stop using PFOA at its Hoosick Falls plants took place the same month that the company 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 until two weeks ago, when 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 a 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.

There are also areas within the town and village, where some of the companies used to dump waste, that are becoming a focus of the EPA's investigation.

The governor's actions occur as the nation is watching state officials in Michigan beset by criticism over their glacial response to lead contamination in the water supply of the once-bustling industrial city of Flint.

Cuomo, who plans to visit Hoosick Falls in the next few weeks, said the state has "a full, aggressive plan to quickly understand the status of the situation, and perform an aggressive remediation."

Matt Hamilton contributed reporting for this story; blyons@timesunion.com • 518-454-5547 • @brendan_lyonstu