Temperatures rose in the first hours of Wednesday’s joint legislative
hearing into water quality during a heated exchange between state
Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin and state Health Commissioner Howard
Zucker. The Republican lawmaker, who represents part of the Rensselaer
County area affected by PFOA contamination, has been waiting for months
to pose questions to Zucker in a hearing.
McLaughlin began by upbraiding another DOH official for previously
mentioning his stress and fatigue levels while dealing with Hoosick
Falls; that was something the village’s residents might understand more
keenly, the lawmaker said. McLaughlin’s first question to Zucker was
whether he had felt a legal obligation to immediately inform the
citizens of Hoosick Falls that their water was tainted.
“Assemblyman, I take issue to some of your statements,” Zucker said,
insisting that he was keenly aware of the sense of anxiety in the
community.
McLaughlin tried asking the question a different way: “Would you have
let your mother drink that water for 18 months?” — a reference to the
gap in time before Hoosick Falls’ resident Michael Hickey’s first test
results and the state’s eventual December 2016 advice that residents
shouldn’t drink from the village water supply or any other system with
PFOA levels above 400 parts per trillion.
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Source: timesunion
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