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New Survey Will Ask NYers Exposed To PFOA About Potential Diseases
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A former EPA administrator and a former New York state health department official have teamed up with a Vermont college to conduct a health survey of people potentially affected by polluted water in the villages of Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh, and in Bennington, Vermont. Judith Enck was the EPA regional administrator during the Obama administration who first warned Hoosick Falls residents in the fall of 2015 not to drink the water in their village because it was contaminated with PFOA, a chemical used in plastics manufacturing for decades in the area. Enck, who left the EPA during the first days of the Trump administration, is working with scientists and academics at nearby Bennington College, which is conducting the study. “The goal of this community questionnaire is to determine, are there health trends in these communities among the residents who consumed contaminated water?” Enck said. A few months after the EPA got involved, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration declared Hoosick Falls a state Superfund site. But Cuomo and his aides were criticized at the time by village residents for not acting quickly enough and for initially downplaying the crisis.