Senator Gillibrand Requests CDC To Proactively Conduct Public Health Assessment Of Saint-Gobain Site In Hoosick Falls

Press Release

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today sent a letter urging the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to use its authority to immediately conduct a public health assessment of the Saint-Gobain site in Hoosick Falls and surrounding communities. A public health assessment would allow the CDC to do the comprehensive review necessary to develop a public health action plan to help address this environmental crisis.

"When you and I visited Hoosick Falls in July 2016, we heard directly from residents about how PFOA exposure has affected their lives and the grave concerns these families have about their future, especially with regard to health-related effects," Senator Gillibrand wrote in the letter. "The results of blood tests have shown that there are residents of the Village of Hoosick Falls with levels of PFOA in their bloodstream as much as 100 or 200 times greater than that of the general U.S. population. I request that the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) proactively initiate a public health assessment of the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics site and the surrounding affected communities as soon as possible."

Senator Gillibrand has been urging the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, as well as the EPA, CDC, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to take action to address the situation in Hoosick Falls, Hoosick, Petersburgh, and other nearby, affected communities.

In May 2016, Senator Gillibrand urged the EPA to expedite the cleanup of Hoosick Falls by designating it as a federal Superfund site. Senator Gillibrand also sent a letter to Senator James Inhofe, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in February 2016 requesting that the committee hold a hearing to examine the effects of PFOA on drinking water in the United States. In June 2016, Senator Gillibrand called on the EPA to use the new authority provided by the recently reformed Toxic Substances Control Act to determine if PFOA should be restricted or banned at the federal level. She also asked the NIH and the CDC to do all they can to provide information and assistance to the residents of Hoosick Falls, Hoosick, and Petersburgh regarding the health effects of PFOA exposure.

Senator Gillibrand wrote to the Directors of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at NIH and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at CDC in July 2016 urging the agencies to prioritize research into the health effects of PFOA exposure and asking the agencies to outline the resources and legislative authority they need to conduct and support research to fill in the current gaps in our understanding of the health effects of PFOA.

Earlier this month, Senator Gillibrand introduced legislation that would require the EPA to expand water testing for unregulated drinking water contaminants to all public water supplies. Currently, the EPA is only required to test for unregulated contaminants in water systems serving over 10,000 people.

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