Event: 'Meeting The Challenge For Rockland’s Drinking Water'

Press release from the Rockland County Legislature:

May 5, 2021

A special program, Meeting the Challenge for Rockland’s Drinking Water, will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 5 and livestreamed on YouTube for all to view.

The program will focus on the levels of PFOA and PFOS now being detected in drinking water sources in Rockland County following new state contaminant levels. It will bring together county, state and federal environmental and health experts, as well as representatives of Suez Water New York, which provides drinking water to a majority of homes and businesses in the county.

“I’m so grateful for the participation of experts who will help explain how and why these chemicals became of concern - what the levels mean, the potential health risks, what is being done to address these contaminants in our drinking water sources - and what we as residents can do,” Rockland County Legislator Harriet Cornell said.

Legislator Cornell is chairwoman of the Legislature’s Environmental Committee, as well as the Rockland County Task Force on Water Resources Management, which was created by County Government in 2014 as a government-community organization. The task force is sponsor of the program.

Last August, New York State passed its first maximum contaminant level (mcl) of 10 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and PFOS - two substances in a class of thousands of persistent chemicals in the environment and in living organisms.

Before that, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had established a health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion (ppt).

Since the state change, these chemicals - used in everyday tasks and found in everyday items - are being detected in drinking water across Rockland County in exceedance of the newly established state contamination limits. There is evidence that exposure to these chemicals can lead to adverse human health effects.

The Rockland Task Force on Water Resources Management has assembled a panel of experts who will speak about this class of contaminants, actions being taken, and answer your questions.

Confirmed participants: New York State Department of Health; Rockland County Department of Health; New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; SUEZ Water; Environmental Advocates of NY; Riverkeeper; Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory/Columbia University.

Livestreaming of this important event will be viewable on the Rockland County Legislature’s YouTube channel. You do not have to subscribe to the channel to view the program. Go here at 7 p.m. on May 5: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwVjg9cKxD3DOjhXyLRnorw/featured.

This press release was produced by the Rockland County Legislature. The views expressed here are the author's own.