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History
- Referred to rules
Full text
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Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act authorizing and directing the commissioner of health to conduct biomonitoring on the residents of Hoosick Falls, Hoosick, and Petersburgh regarding PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) contamination; and providing for the repeal of such provisions upon expiration thereof
Purpose
To ensure that biomonitoring for PFOA continues in the Village of Hoosick Falls, the Town of Hoosick and the Town of Petersburgh .
Summary of provisions
Section 1 directs the Commissioner of Health to continue to implement a biomonitoring study for Hoosick Falls, Hoosick and Petersburg to include blood tests every two years.
Section 2 requires a report on the results of the biomonitoring studies every two years after each blood testing to be transmitted to the Governor, the Temporary President of the Senate, the Speaker of the Assembly, the Chair of the Senate Health Committee and the Chair of the Assembly Health Committee. Each individual tested shall receive their own blood test results as well as the report.
Section 3 provides that the costs associated with this Act shall be borne by the State Hazardous Waste Remedial Fund. The Commissioners of Environmental Conservation and Health shall make all reasonable efforts to recover the full amount of any funds expended from the fund pursuant to this section through voluntary agreements or court orders.
Section 4 states the effective date, expiration date and repeal date.
Justification
The recent discovery of water contamination caused by perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh has raised great alarm to residents of those areas, as well as, alarm across the State. These instances of contamination have been cited as the potential cause of many previously unexplained illnesses by members, workers and visitors of those communities. The illnesses include kidney and testicular cancer, pre-eclampsia, ulcerative colitis, changes in thyroid hormone and high cholesterol levels.
Biomonitoring by blood sample has been offered to all people exposed to the contaminated water. Those tested received their personal results which amounted to a number indicating the level of PFOA in their bloodstream with many indicating significant elevated levels of PFOA.
This single biomonitoring measurement is but one snapshot in time. To give effective analysis, it must be repeated over time and also compared with other similar biomonitoring studies elsewhere.
Biomonitoring does not give information as to how long a substance has been in the body or how it got there, but it serves as a guide for further research to: reinforce regulatory actions by providing actual data about which chemicals get into people at what levels; improve exposure assessments; establish baselines to reference ranges; facilitate people's right to know what chemicals are in their bodies; establish priorities for tackling environmental health-related problems and identify health disparities. (Toxipedia)
In Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh, continued biomonitoring will help to make sense of what the high levels of PFOA in the bloodstream means; it will help to make more certain what harm human exposure to PFOA causes. Continued biomonitoring will strengthen the research on PFOA and in turn help those that have been afflicted not just in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh, but throughout New York State.
Legislative history
This is a new bill.
Fiscal implications
To be determined.
Effective date
Immediately.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.