HOOSICK FALLS — Gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon Wednesday accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo of putting corporate interests ahead of the needs of Hoosick Falls residents when it became apparent their water was contaminated with a toxic chemical from a manufacturing plant.

After meeting with community members affected by the crisis, the "Sex and the City" actress and potential Democratic primary challenger called for Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant, located just yards from the village's wells and water treatment facility, to be held accountable for public health and economic fallout.

Nixon, who credited the Times Union for spotlighting the problem, noted the government allowed residents to continue drinking the water for more than a year after the pollutants were discovered in 2014.

Emails obtained by the Times Union in 2016 showed that village, state, and federal officials engaged in a months-long back-and-forth about how to handle the situation -- and whether to tell the public.

"Rather than warning people about this, and rather than saying 'don't drink the water, it's poison,' they were in backrooms trying to negotiate with Saint-Gobain, the polluter -- the corporate polluter -- in a way that wouldn't ruffle their feathers," said Nixon.

Nixon criticized the state for the slow pace of the cleanup and called for the governor to answer the call of residents for an alternate source of drinking water.

"We need to weigh human life more heavily than we do the agendas of corporations," she said.

Nixon was joined at the news conference with former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Judith Enck who endorsed the actress for governor.

Enck, a Rensselaer County resident, served was EPA regional administrator during the Obama administration, and is credited with instructing residents to stop drinking the contaminated water.

"As the federal official who alerted the public about the risk of drinking the toxic water in Hoosick Falls, I continue to be concerned that the state of New York has not learned the lessons from their water crisis," she said in a statement. "It is time for new environmental leadership in New York. Cynthia Nixon would take a less combative and more collaborative approach to tackling the legacy of pollution, which unfortunately can be found in every corner of our state."

When asked to respond to Nixon's criticisms a Cuomo spokesperson said the state's comprehensive response to the environmental contamination in Hoosick Falls was "unprecedented" and pointed a finger at the EPA for failing to hold polluters accountable.

"To date, we have invested more than $25 million to help the community recover, built a state-of-the-art treatment system for the village water supply and installed more than 900 home filtration systems for residents with private wells," said spokesman Richard Azzopardi. "Our commitment to the Hoosick Falls community has been unwavering and will remain so until the job is done."