black and brown leather padded tub sofa

Woodstockers United for Change

Mission Statement:

o Provide information and facilitate communication about issues impacting the Woodstock Community

o Investigate and report issues not being made transparent to the community

o Serve as a watchdog over the governance of Woodstock in following town laws, state laws and ethical practices

o Mobilize Woodstockers to peacefully respond to actions or absence thereof that could negatively affect the community

o Promote ideas and activities that could benefit the community and create positive change

PFOS

OUR PETITION TO THE WOODSTOCK TOWN BOARD (Change.org) <- Click here to sign

Please follow the link to sign the petition asking the Town of Woodstock to PROACTIVELY address the PFOS in our water supply.

Here is the text:

Whereas PFOS, a “forever chemical” of extreme toxicity and resistance to dissipation, has been contaminating Woodstock’s drinking water since 2022 1,

And whereas nothing prevents the Town government from taking proactive remediation measures to ensure public safety, even before the “Maximum Contamination Levels” set as “acceptable” by State or Federal agencies are reached 2,

We, the citizens of Woodstock, call upon the Town Board of Woodstock to exercise its duty to protect our community by taking the following measures:

1- Source tracing and identification: Retain a qualified professional Hydrologist or Hydrogeologist to conduct standard investigations to identify, regulate and remove sources of PFOS contamination.

2- Communicate: Post a schedule of quarterly testing dates and results in an easy to find section on the Town of Woodstock Website, with regular updates on our water situation a fixed agenda item at Town Board meetings.

3- Action plan: Develop and execute a comprehensive plan for remediation, funding for filtering and management of PFOS contamination. Establish long term monitoring programs to track trends in PFOS levels and assess the effectiveness of mitigation efforts.

These actions can help to ensure a responsible and transparent approach to safeguarding public health and environmental quality.

* Note: This petition is only for residents and workers in Greater Woodstock, NY.

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“Forever chemicals” have come to Woodstock’s water supply

PFAS is an umbrella group of over 7,000 chemicals. They are commonly found in carpets, textiles, leather, cosmetics, paper, packaging materials, plastics and construction debris. They are highly resistant to deterioration - meaning they stick around for years, including inside your body.

On April 10, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the final “National Primary Drinking Water Regulation” (NPDWR) for six of the PFAS compounds. And of those six, only PFOA and PFOS were designated at the most restrictive limit of 4 ppt (parts per trillion) due to their particular toxicity. The U.S. E.P.A. has further stated that there is “no safe level” of these compounds, and banned them from consumer products.

Unfortunately for us, public water systems have until 2029 to remove excess PFAS from our water. While that will be helpful years from now, PFOS has infiltrated every part of our environment, and continues to be used in products imported from outside the United States. So, its impact remains ever-present given that PFOS is one of the PFAS chemicals that is most resistant to deteriorating. It takes many years for it to break down in our bodies and in the environment.

As stated, PFOS is highly toxic. It is poison to humans (particularly children), pets and wildlife. As PFOS gets into the body - mostly through ingestion - it has been shown to have very serious impacts on our health, including but not limited to:

liver disease

thyroid disease

significant hormonal/endocrinal disruptions

fetal and neo-natal developmental effects

accelerated puberty

obesity

and, according to the National Cancer Institute, it is associated with causing the following cancers:

testicular

breast

kidney

thyroid

ovarian and endometrial

non-Hodgkins lymphoma

childhood leukemia

But isn’t the aquifer that supplies our drinking water pristine? Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case, as PFOS was first detected in our annual 2022 water test. Levels of PFOS quadrupled in the annual water test at the end of 2023 and have remained close to those increased levels in 2024.

So now that we have PFOS in our water can anything be done? The good news is YES. The first step is for the Town Board to hire a qualified and independent professional hydrologist or hydrogeologist, to conduct source tracing, to determine where the contamination is coming from, something they have thus far refused to do. Isn’t it our right to know? Source tracing consists of running multiple tests along the aquifer to determine not only where the PFOS is coming from, but what levels are at the source(s) once found. Failure to do this virtually guarantees that the problem will grow and require greater remediation steps later, after we have already been ingesting the toxin for years.

Concurrently, the town could and should deal with this threat proactively, by, in consultation with experts, choosing and approving one of a few available technologies that would filter the PFOS out of the town water supply before it further invades our homes.

So why isn’t the town acting to protect us and our water? Sadly, they have justified their inaction with the following two excuses.

First, members of the town board have argued that the numbers of PFOS are very small, in that they are measured in parts per trillion [the highest number thus far being 3.48 ppt], implying that we shouldn’t have to worry about it for now. A panelist at the “town hall” organized by a Town Board member even echoed this alibi, which is one reason why Woodstockers United for Change had to organize its own town hall. The fact is that while this argument may sound persuasive on its face, it has no merit. The very reason PFOS is measured in parts per trillion is because it’s that toxic. Again, there is NO SAFE LEVEL of PFOS. These small amounts are precisely what can cause the incredibly serious health effects previously mentioned.

The second argument of the Town Board is their legal right to avoid taking action. The new E.P.A. “MCL” (Maximum Contaminant Level) of 4 ppt, the level of PFOS the federal government expects us to live with before remediation is required, won’t be enforced for years. Even worse, the N.Y.S. Department of Health still maintains the legacy MCL at 10 ppt before requiring a local government to take action, allowing ours to do nothing. Bear in mind that these Maximum Contaminant Levels set by government agencies are not based on pure science, they are affected by other considerations such as business and political interests and the practical limits of current technology.

But here’s the rub! Nothing is stopping our town from taking action. Those limits are legal limits - not ethical ones. The Town Board could act responsibly and take proactive measures now to clean our water, making it free from these poisons that are already in our water supply. Why should we have to wait while the risk of our children, family, friends and neighbors getting seriously sick grows? The “Green Amendment” of the NYS Constitution states, very clearly, that, “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”

So, it’s up to all of us to push the town to act. Email the town board members, show up to town board meetings and speak or hold signs, send letters to newspapers, call or write to your elected officials, use social media, or just share this information with your neighbors. Let’s try to get the town to do its job and act now

- Woodstockers United for Change

woodstockersunitedforchange.com

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Video Extract from Town Board meeting 10/22/2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrcbwBR2oKU

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Transcript of Presentation to Town Board 10/22/2024

We are the Woodstockers United for Change.

After a very successful Town Hall on our water situation, we are calling upon the Supervisor and the town board to do the following:

1- Source tracing and identification: Retain a qualified professional to conduct investigations to identify, regulate and remove sources of PFOS contamination.

2- Communicate: A schedule of testing dates and results should be posted in an easy to find section on the Town of Woodstock Website. Regular updates on our water situation should be announced at town board meetings.

3- Action plan: Develop a comprehensive plan for remediation, funding for filtering and management of PFOS contamination. Establish long term monitoring programs to track trends in PFOS levels and assess the effectiveness of mitigation efforts.

4- Health Services Access: Ensure access to health screenings and services for residents potentially affected by PFOS. Make available blood tests to measure levels of exposure to PFOS.

These actions can help to ensure a proactive and transparent approach to safeguarding public health and environmental quality concerning the PFAS contamination in our town water. We hope you will listen to the townspeople and show us you care about our health and safety by implementing these measures

Woodstockers United for Change

  • Alan Weber

    Chris Bailey

    Chris Finlay

    Linda Lover

    Marcel Nagele

    Stephanie Kaplan

    Vince Mow

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For PFOS questions: cooke.maryt@epa.gov 202-564-0788

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Vincent Mow July 17 at 7:59 A

Presentation to the Woodstock Town Board on 7/16/2024

My name is Vince Mow presenting on behalf of Woodstockers United for Change.


You, the town board and town supervisor took an oath of office to uphold the NYS Constitution.


NYS Constitution Bill of Rights, Article I, Section 19: The Environmental Right, states that “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”

From the EarthJustice website: “One of the primary motivations behind creating the Environmental Right was the issue of contaminants such as PFAS that are not yet comprehensively regulated in New York State, often referred to as “emerging contaminants”.”

Several years ago, the Saugerties Karolys dump site was so full of illegal toxic waste, containing an abundance of PFAS compounds, that the NYDEC closed the operation and required thousands of tons to be removed to a secure landfill for final disposal. As many have heard, the material ended up elsewhere, with Karolys finally incurring about $8M in fines for illegal removal and disposal. But our own Shady Dump is oddly excluded from that settlement, even though the source of the waste is included in Shandaken Court testimony. There can be no doubt about where it came from, or what it is.

And you Supervisor McKenna issued the phony permit later invalidated in court, which allowed as much as 3000 tons of this hazardous material to be deposited directly above the town aquifer in Shady. Still leaching contaminants into our groundwater as you fail to serve the Conigliaro’s with their obvious violation of Chapter 192-4 & 5 of town law, which requires the homeowners to remove the illegal waste at their own expense.

Now our town aquifer has for the past three years tested positive for PFOS, one of the nastiest of all the PFAS compounds. But instead of looking for the inevitable source of the contamination, we hear things from you like, probably just something disturbed when the new well went in. Or, no it can’t possibly be coming from Shady. I do hope you realize that Shady and the town well field are connected by an aquifer Bill.

The original 2022 reading of 0.86 ppt PFOS was basically ignored and referred to as below detection. In 2023 when it quadrupled to 3.48 ppt PFOS, it did not even make mention in the water department report for that year, that is until me and a friend questioned Larry Allen who then revised the report with a small note mentioning the appearance of a new contaminant in town water.

And then of course, this year. While the Supervisor was trying to convince us that the erroneously reported 2024 level of <1.86 ppt PFOS was “non-detectable” at the WEC meeting he attended, we were soon to discover that the error was much greater. By reviewing the backup data which the town’s consulting lab was supposed to transfer to the town’s water report, it took regular citizens to discover the actual reading of 2.39 ppt PFOS.

I will close with two questions for the Town Board:

1. Which of you intends to honor your oath of office in this matter, and
2. How much longer must we wait for a concerted effort to identify the source of the contamination flowing from our taps and showerheads?

**Woodstockers United for Change**

UPDATE: PFOS Still in Town Water after False Test Result is Corrected!

Well, it looks like that toxic, forever-chemical PFOS is still in our town well field despite the Supervisor stating erroneously at the last WEC meeting that the 2024 test results showed no trace of PFOS. Even the earlier incorrect results showed that PFOS was above detectable limits, but I know all those numbers can be a little confusing.

The big news is that the 2024 results were incorrectly reported by the town’s Water Testing Lab when they failed to copy the correct result from the lab they use for PFAS, and were only corrected after local citizens, unaffiliated with town government, reviewed the supporting test data and found the error. The elevated level that the lab failed to report was 2.39 ppt PFOS instead of the <1.86 ppt that Bill misinterpreted as undetectable.

Please review information on this site for protective measures, and let local restaurants know they should be serving only water that has been sufficiently treated, or from a safe source. Test data of Woodstock’s Public Water System show PFOS appearing from 2022 through to the present. The appearances in test results may be erratic due to the strange way this compound behaves in cold water, but it is certainly present, and not likely to go away until the source is discovered and removed.

Please urge our town government to begin the process of source detection, under professional guidance, until all sources leaching into our precious aquifer are detected and removed.

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Town Water Quality Update:

Since the presence of PFOS in the Woodstock Public Water System has now been confirmed for the past three consecutive years, we believe certain actions to protect the public health of our townspeople and visitors are in order.

The 2023 reading of 3.48 ppt PFOS was a wake-up call that without further protective measures, the stuff coming out of our taps may not be fit to drink or even bathe in. The fact that the measurable levels have not reached either the 4.0 ppt Federal Guidelines or the outdated NY limit of 10 ppt, should not relieve the town of the obligation to determine the source of contamination.

As previously reported, a recent erroneous test result showed PFOS at <1.86 ppt. The corrected value that the lab failed to report was 2.39 ppt. This is certainly enough to cause concern since PFOS is one of those PFAS compounds for which the USEPA has stated unequivocally there is NO safe level.

There have been several questions and concerns over the erratic nature of the town well readings. One thing to keep in mind is that many PFAS compounds including PFOS, can behave as a thick separate liquid when deposited in a cold aquifer. It can then congeal into globules known as Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL). In DNAPL form, PFOS can lurk in our formerly pristine sand and gravel aquifer, until the aquifer flow dissolves it very slowly giving up its contaminating contents. This can occur over a very long period, since the half-life of PFOS in water is something in the range of 3 to 5 years. This means traces of material can continue to appear in the aquifer, even after the source of contamination has been removed, for up to 10 years after the last contamination event.

While the town has indicated a willingness to perform quarterly testing instead of annual, until they decide to take further action, we would also like to see some testing of individual consumers tap water, up gradient from Bearsville flats along the Sawkill stream valley where our aquifer continues past Shady to its origin. All this water science may be complicated, but it still flows downhill, if you know what I mean. So, the source of the past three years contamination must be either in the Bearsville Flats wellfield itself, or upgradient in the aquifer following the upper Sawkill Creek.

FINAL THOUGHT: If the contamination is measurable after the tremendous dilution of over 100,000 gallons per day being pumped, how concentrated must it be at the source, and what are we missing?

See other resources at this site for more information on how to have your own water tested.

Please share with us any results that would cause further concern.

Wishing you Water,

Woodstockers United for Change

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HOW TO FILTER PFAS OUT OF YOUR TAP WATER

It will be five years before utilities will have to completely comply with the PFAS levels set by the EPA. Prior to those regulations going into place, however, individuals can still take steps on their own.

As the 2023 USGS report noted, different types of PFAS exist in different concentrations in drinking water across the country. The first thing that anyone concerned about PFAS should do is to figure out whether it’s present in the region they live in and at what levels.

“If the person has publicly supplied water, they should be able to obtain a report from their local utility. Otherwise, they also can search the tap water database from the Environmental Working Group,” Jamie DeWitt, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Eastern Carolina University, told Vox last year when the USGS study was released. “If the person is on a private well, unless they are covered by a court order due to known contamination, they will have to send their water out for testing on their own. Many departments of public health have recommendations on where water can be sent for different types of testing.”

Stoiber notes that any level of PFAS is concerning and recommends the filtration of drinking water across the board. “Really, you don’t want any level of PFAS in your water because it has been linked to harmful health effects at quite low levels,” she told Vox.

There are a range of water filters that can target PFAS, but they vary in efficacy. According to a 2020 study and the experts Vox spoke with, a reverse osmosis water filter is the most effective tool for removing PFAS.

That review found that these water filters — which can be installed under a kitchen sink — are over 90 percent effective at screening out these chemicals. The filters work by sifting water through a membrane that has very “tiny holes,” says Stoiber, and the PFAS molecules get trapped as a result. The downsides of reverse osmosis filtration systems are that they waste significant amounts of water and can be pricey, costing anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Activated carbon filters can also reduce levels of PFAS, but were found to be less effective, according to the 2020 study. These types of filters were able to remove, on average, 73 percent of PFAS contaminants, though there was more variability. They work by attracting PFAS molecules to carbon and can be used in sinks, refrigerators, and pitchers. And while they are more cost-effective, they also have to be replaced promptly, or else their efficacy declines. Standard Brita water filters use a form of carbon technology and can remove some PFAS, but aren’t built for this express purpose, so shouldn’t be counted on solely to filter out the chemicals.

When it comes to PFAS, experts note that filtered water is a better option than switching exclusively to bottled water, which can be costly, wasteful, and potentially include its own contaminants. They say, too, that ingestion poses the biggest risk of PFAS exposure relative to other water uses like showering, hand-washing, and clothes washing. If you can, the best thing to do is to filter your own water if you live in a contaminated area.

“Bottled water is known to have high concentrations of PFAS. There was a case in Massachusetts a couple of years ago where bottled water had very high concentrations of PFAS in it because it was sourced from PFAS-contaminated water,” Harvard environmental chemist Elsie Sunderland previously told Vox’s Benji Jones. “So I think you’re better off drinking filtered water from a known source.”

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A chemist explains how PFAS can harm us — and what to do about them.

by Benji Jones

Jun 23, 2023, 11:51 AM EDT

You probably have “forever chemicals” in your body. Here’s what that means.

A group of chemicals called PFAS, which are found in all kinds of products and drinking water, have been linked with a number of health problems including cancer.

Benji Jones is an environmental correspondent at Vox, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Before joining Vox, he was a senior energy reporter at Business Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher.

Right now, you likely have something unnatural lurking inside your body. It was made by a large corporation and could potentially harm you.

That something is called PFAS.

Known colloquially as “forever chemicals,” PFAS — short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a large group of chemicals that make certain products nonstick or stain resistant. Research indicates that these chemicals can be dangerous. Exposure to PFAS is linked to cancers, weakened immune systems among children, weight gain, and a wide range of other health problems.

PFAS are a public health concern, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Companies are still producing them, though stricter regulation may be coming. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to set a national standard to limit some of these compounds in drinking water. And just this week, the chemical company 3M agreed to pay $10.3 billion to settle lawsuits concerning its PFAS products contaminating water supplies. (The company also says, according to the Associated Press, it will stop producing PFAS by 2025.)

What’s especially alarming is that nearly all Americans have some amount of PFAS in their blood, no matter how healthy they might be. “We’re really seeing PFAS absolutely everywhere,” said Elsie M. Sunderland, an environmental chemist at Harvard who’s been studying PFAS for roughly a decade.

These chemicals are in all kinds of consumer products, from clothes to fast food, where they help repel oil and water. They also contaminate the water we drink and, in some places, even the air we breathe, Sunderland said. Last summer, the EPA published an advisory that suggests even tiny amounts of PFAS in drinking water may pose health risks.

The good news is that there are ways to avoid exposure, such as by using a water filter, Sunderland said. And recentresearch suggests there might be a simple approach to destroy them in the environment.

To understand what these chemicals really are and how they might affect our bodies, I chatted with Sunderland, an expert on the topic, last summer. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Benji Jones

How would you explain PFAS to a 5-year-old?

Elsie M. Sunderland

They are chemicals that we add to everyday products, such as our rugs, our fast-food packaging, and our cosmetics. Those chemicals repel oil and fat, and they are very profitable. And it turns out that when humans ingest them — either through their diet or water — they can cause some bad health effects.

Benji Jones

How would you explain them to a college student?

Elsie M. Sunderland

The chemical structure of PFAS is one thing that differentiates them from other chemicals.

An organic molecule has bonds of carbon and hydrogen atoms. To make PFAS molecules, you replace the hydrogen with fluorine. So PFAS are molecules that have chains of fluorine-carbon bonds, and it’s incredibly difficult to break these bonds.

The structure of common PFAS molecules.

Bevin Blake and Suzanne Fenton, 2020/Toxicology

Benji Jones

Why are they called “forever chemicals”?

Elsie M. Sunderland

They are among the most persistent chemicals we’ve ever created. It takes a huge amount of energy to break down that carbon-fluorine bond.

[The term “forever chemicals” is also a play on words: The “f” in “forever” comes from “fluorine” and the “c” in “chemicals” comes from “carbon.” The Harvard researcher Joe Allen coined the term “forever chemicals” in a 2018 op-ed in the Washington Post.]

PFAS are absolutely everywhere — in fast-food wrappers, water, and even the air

Benji Jones

Where do PFAS come from?

Elsie M. Sunderland

The companies 3M, DuPont, and Chemours. Chemical companies make PFAS and sell them to other companies that use them in an incredibly diverse array of products. They’re really in everything: furniture, rugs, textiles, outdoor gear, paper packaging, food packaging.

They’re mainly used as surfactants — they repel oil and water. So when you have a spill on your furniture, and want to keep it clean, then PFAS are often added.

[DuPont has had a complicated history of mergers, acquisitions, and divestments, including spinning off its chemicals business in 2015 into what’s now known as the Chemours Company. In a statement to Vox, DuPont spokesperson Daniel Turner said, “the company has established a set of commitments to take responsible action related to PFAS.” You can read DuPont’s full statement regarding PFAShere.]

[3M spokesperson Sean Lynch told Vox that PFAS are important materials that can be used and manufactured safely. “3M is taking proactive steps to reduce our reliance on persistent materials through innovation.” You can read 3M’s full statement here.]

[Cassie Olszewski, a spokesperson at Chemours, said “the world depends on our products, and we are committed to manufacturing these essential chemistries responsibly.” Here’s the company’s full statement.]

Benji Jones

How do these chemicals contaminate the environment?

Elsie M. Sunderland

A major source of community contamination across the US has been a product called aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, which suppresses oil-based fires. The military actually requires AFFF at bases and they’ve used it for decades during training exercises [to put out purposefully set fires]. It’s 8-10 percent PFAS by weight, which is incredibly high. So you just need a tiny quantity of that to contaminate drinking water.

Aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) left over after a tanker truck fire in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, in February 2019. Absorbent booms are used to prevent the foam from contaminating the environment.

If you’re trying to save a life during a fire, maybe you’d want to have AFFF, if you don’t have an effective alternative. The problem is that the military has used huge quantities of it for training. It contaminated the groundwater in all of these communities next to military bases. There are more than 600 known sites like this across the country.

[In a statement to Vox, the Department of Defense acknowledged that PFAS are a national problem and said it’s committed to protecting human health. “The Department prioritizes resources and addresses sites where risk to human health is the highest,” Defense officials said. Peter Hughes, a spokesperson for the department, also shared a memo from April 2022 that details a new policy that restricts the use of AFFF for training. You can read the complete statement here and the new AFFF policy here.]

Benji Jones

What consumer products expose us to PFAS?

Elsie M. Sunderland

One of my undergrads did a day in the life of a Harvard student and tested things around campus. She found PFAS in her Doc Martens, in the carpet, in the furniture’s upholstery, in shower curtains. It’s also in cosmetics like lotions and mascaras. Eye drops actually have it.

And if you’re into outdoor activities there are a ton of them. They’re in ski waxes and bike chain oils and outdoor clothing.

Benji Jones

What’s the likelihood that if I grab a burger at a fast-food joint I’m going to be exposed to PFAS?

Elsie M. Sunderland

Very high. But we should be able to fix that problem relatively quickly. A few US states are now banning PFAS in food packaging.

Benji Jones

Are there also PFAS in our drinking water? That seems particularly scary and unavoidable.

Elsie M. Sunderland

Almost everybody has some PFAS in their drinking water. And if you’re actually measuring what’s in your blood, 98 percent to 99 percent of people have PFAS in their bodies, so it’s literally in everybody.

A sign in Rockford, Michigan warning visitors of PFAS contamination in the Rogue River.

Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg via Getty Images

PFAS get into drinking water when they are released to the environment from sources such as firefighting foam use at airports and military bases, manufacturing sites, and waste disposal sites such as wastewater treatment plants and landfills. Some PFAS precursors are also transported in the atmosphere and when they break down and can be deposited onto soils and surface waters, eventually entering groundwater as well.

Benji Jones

Are they in the air, too?

Elsie M. Sunderland

It is in the air. There’s a plastic manufacturer in New Hampshire, for example, that has volatile emissions. You can see it in the soils surrounding the plant. Factories like these don’t emit the PFAS that people are concerned about — chemicals like PFOS or PFOA — but they emit compounds that degrade into them.

It’s also important to consider the indoor environment, because it’s on furniture and other things. Inhalation is actually another way it can enter your body.

What PFAS do to your body, at different levels of exposure

Benji Jones

Should we be worried about our exposure?

Elsie M. Sunderland

The people who should be most worried are those who are inadvertently exposed to those really contaminated sites. They have more severe problems — things like cancer. There’s been some sort of statistical association between PFAS and every major organ system in the body, which is not comforting. You name the disease and you can find an association.

In children, PFAS exposure has been associated with a decline in antibody production in response to routine vaccination. That’s an indicator of whole immune health. There are a bunch of studies showing increase in severity of Covid-19 with higher levels of exposure to certain PFAS. It’s also been linked to diabetes and the ability to lose weight.

Another really sad impact is related to breastfeeding. PFAS can interfere with fat metabolism. Anecdotally, there are a lot of reports of women who aren’t able to continue breastfeeding their children because they lack the [breast milk] supply.

Benji Jones

How do PFAS impact our body at lower levels of exposure, which an average American might experience?

Elsie M. Sunderland

Exposure to PFAS may do nothing or it may do something. The question is how meaningful is that risk relative to all the other risks you undertake. It’s not going to kill you immediately. And there’s a lot of evidence showing that some people are more sensitive to exposures to environmental chemicals than others.

A new advisory for drinking water from the EPA essentially says that any level of exposure to these chemicals is going to cause some health impacts. I agree with that.

Benji Jones

Why are these chemicals, specifically, so harmful to us?

Elsie M. Sunderland

Their half-lives [i.e., how long they take to decompose] are very long, so they accumulate in your body. They look like phospholipids [a kind of fatty acid], so they’re mimicking some other bodily function. Typically, when a chemical is harmful it’s because your body thinks it’s something else and it triggers some kind of response.

When you create synthetic organic chemicals that look like something else that the body uses naturally, you often run into problems. Some PFAS can also cross the blood-brain barrier, and some of them cross the placental barrier.

Benji Jones

Are all PFAS created equal?

Elsie M. Sunderland

Chemically, different PFAS molecules look quite different from each other. If you’re talking about something like lead, you’re talking about one compound; it looks one way and has a series of effects in the body. The problem with PFAS, in part, is that there are thousands of chemical structures. If you prove one is bad, we have all of these other ones.

Everybody calls PFAS the chemical wack-a-mole. You get rid of one of them and the industry just uses another one. Then, it takes a decade to figure out that this other PFAS chemical is just as bad, and then the industry uses yet another one.

The best ways to limit your exposure to PFAS

Benji Jones

So how do we avoid ingesting PFAS?

Elsie M. Sunderland

Cosmetics and personal care products tend to have active ingredient lists, and if any ingredient has a “fluoro” something in it, beware. You can go to websites like Environmental Working Group, which say what to look for and score different products according to their health implications.

One of the main ways for PFAS to go from a product to the human body is through dust. So an easy way to reduce exposure is to wipe down your surfaces. Be clean. Takeout food is harder, because there’s no product list [for the to-go containers].

Just be careful when you see “PFOA free” on something like a nonstick pan, because then it probably means that they just use a different kind of PFAS. Look for “PFAS-free” or “certified nontoxic.”

Benji Jones

What about in water? Do Brita filters or reverse osmosis systems get rid of them, or is bottled water better?

Elsie M. Sunderland

Those filters all remove some PFAS, but reverse osmosis is the most effective for taking all of them out. A paper [published in 2020] is quite encouraging because it shows that all of these different water filtration systems did remove some of them.

Bottled water is known to have high concentrations of PFAS. There was a case in Massachusetts a couple of years ago where bottled water had very high concentrations of PFAS in it because it was sourced from PFAS-contaminated water. So I think you’re better off drinking filtered water from a known source.

A water treatment plant in Fullerton, California that filters out PFAS.

Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Benji Jones

How do you know whether your water source has PFAS in it?

Elsie M. Sunderland

You should be able to see it on your water utility bill [in some states].

[The Environmental Working Group also has a map that shows PFAS contamination in drinking water across the US.]

Benji Jones

What about air? Do air filters, like HEPA filters, help remove PFAS from the indoor environment?

Elsie M. Sunderland

HEPA filters capture fine particles, which reduce the amount of dust you inhale. So, yes, [they could help reduce PFAS exposure].

The chemical and fossil fuel industries are at fault

Benji Jones

Who’s to blame for spreading PFAS in the US?

Elsie M. Sunderland

Companies like 3M and Dupont. The industry has known for decades that these chemicals are really bad, but they’re incredibly profitable.

And the fossil fuel industry. These synthetic organic chemicals are typically fossil fuel derivatives. We talk about climate change and chemical exposure as two separate issues, but we should start thinking about them together. As we move away from fossil fuel combustion and towards renewable energy, the industry is going to turn their products into plastics and synthetic chemicals.

Benji Jones

Is the US government doing anything about this?

Elsie M. Sunderland

They’ve actually done a lot. It’s one of the only bipartisan issues related to environmental health, largely because there are vocal communities that have been affected in regions with different political affiliations.

But it’s difficult. The EPA typically assesses individual chemicals, instead of regulating chemicals as a class, which is what we need for PFAS because there are thousands of different chemicals that make up the class. For example, EPA is still doing work to map the Adverse Outcome Pathway for some legacy PFAS including PFOS and PFOA and this takes many years, while these compounds are no longer the ones being produced and have been replaced by new chemicals.

If we want to [limit our exposure to PFAS] we should act quickly. We should ban the non-essential uses, get rid of new production, and regulate them as a class. Most of the ways we use PFAS, we don’t need to, so why are we doing it?

Update, June 23, 11:50 am ET: This story was originally published on August 25, 2022, and has been updated multiple times, most recently with news of 3M’s settlement agreement.

Clarification, August 27, 11 am ET: An answer in a previous version of this article suggested that water utility bills across the US include measurements of PFAS contamination. This is only true in some states.

Shady Dump

A Narrative History of the Shady Dump

In 2019, Joseph Karolys began dumping construction and waste material in Saugerties. The DEC confirmed that it was filled with hydrocarbons, metals and pesticides, and directed Karolys to immediately remove the waste and dispose of it at an authorized waste management facility. Instead, five months later, after his business had already been shut down, Karolys began transferring at least two hundred truckloads to 10 Church Road in Shady, unabated by the Town. A hydrogeologist, John Conrad, hired by Frank and Pam Eighmey, whose property abutted a huge mound of the landfill that thereafter washed down onto their property, found dangerous contaminants. Appealed to by Shady residents and given that the dumping violated Town law, in October, 2020 the Town Supervisor promised a full cleanup.

Between late 2020 and mid 2022 there were continuing discussions about a plan, but nothing happened. The Town Supervisor claimed that he needed a conviction before the Town could take action, and suggested instead that the Eighmeys sue Vincent Conigliaro, the owner of 10 Church Road and recipients of the “land fill.” The first conviction did finally come down in 2022, against Karolys and Gina Conigliaro, Vincent’s wife, but charges against Vincent were dropped by the Town. Nevertheless, no action by the Town followed for over a year. It should be noted that Town law states that if the property owner does not exercise his/her responsibility, the Town could seek a court order to have the remediation done and be reimbursed by the County, who would then bill Conigliaro on his tax bill. In 2022, Supervisor McKenna raised the possibility of creating a capital fund for a cleanup if Conigliaro didn’t take action, but Board member Ratcliff suggested that a plan should be in place first, and no further discussion on this ever took place.

Finally, in 2023, five possible remedial plans were offered, including those from the Woodstock Environmental Commission, but the Town Supervisor decided to go with the least favorable, but, in his words, "most practical" one, which he said came from the Town engineer, although it was presented on Conigliaro letterhead. “Plan E,” as it has been dubbed, was a "sort and shift" plan, one that merely removed the large, visible material (allegedly a few truck loads no one knows to where), and simply moved the vast majority of what had been dumped, the pulverized particulates, to other parts of the same property. And there they have remained, right over the Town aquifer. No vote was taken and no residents were consulted. The Supervisor directed the Buildings Department to issue a permit, but for some reason didn’t collect the required fee, saying it would be collected down the road (and hasn’t to this day). It should be noted that the permit refers to the contaminated debris as “dirt,” and states that it would all be cleaned up, which was not the plan, among other concerning issues including lack of documentation. The DEC did a visual inspection, took a few random soil samples, and said that it wasn't a problem from their end, while four distinguished hydrologists reported the continuing threat to the Town water supply, and the DEC made it clear that they didn’t have jurisdiction, the Town does.

Throughout this process, the Woodstock Environmental Commission had been trying to exercise its responsibility by pressing for full disclosure and cleanup, but were essentially blocked from involvement and the chair ultimately removed and replaced. The Eighmeys appealed the remediation plan, but the Town denied their right to an appeal. Finally, in 2024, Plan E was, in fact, declared illegal, having violated professional standards and the Town’s own “Fill and Grading” law, which had been passed to strengthen already existing laws. The Supervisor continued to use the DEC “visual inspection”(which would not account for the pulverized debris, the most likely to leach into the aquifer) as justification for taking no further action on the Shady Dump. However, the DEC has said that Woodstock law takes precedence, and our Town always had the right and responsibility to clean up Shady according to its laws. As for the purported reason for the Town’s inaction, that it can’t spend tax money on private property, two vouchers for work on that very property, dated 7/8/22 and 7/25/23, prove otherwise.

Last month, Karolys was found guilty of toxic dumping and required to clean up three of his dump sites. However, Woodstock’s was not included because the Town never joined the lawsuit against him. Rather, it has been fighting in court against the victims, the Eighmeys, who are seeking real remediation and damages. To this day, multiple hydrologists and hydrogeologists concur that it’s not a matter of if the particulates leach into the aquifer and pollute Woodstock’s water, it’s when. Some believe it’s already happening. Recent reports show a dramatic and dangerous rise in the PFA’s (“forever chemicals”), but no link has, at least as of yet, been established between that and the dump. Regardless, it’s undisputed that the two hundred truckloads of alleged “dirt” originated from Karolys’s toxic Saugerties dump; the Conigliaros testified to it. The people of Shady continue to be strongly advised not to drink the water from their wells, which have been showing increasing and new contaminants. And the Eighmeys have pretty much gone broke fighting for not just themselves but for all of us, who will not only have to foot the bill for the Town’s defense of the contaminated site, but potentially for a more massive clean-up effort if and when it makes our Town water undrinkable.

Woodstock Police

Recently, it was reported in the Daily Freeman that a federal discrimination lawsuit has been filed by members of the Woodstock Police Department against other members of the WPD - specifically, Chief Keefe and Officer Sinagra who has been on paid administrative leave. The town is also named as a defendant in the federal lawsuit.

For those who do not know the history, a series of racial and sexist remarks by Chief Keefe and Officer Sinagra were allegedly directed toward female officers and overheard by female employees. These remarks were also overheard by or said to male officers. Their Sergeant followed proper procedure and brought the harassment to the attention of the Chief and Supervisor McKenna. In response to these complaints coming to light, the victims of this conduct were retaliated against in multiple ways including but not limited to forcing them to work extra shifts with the offending officer as well as being denied opportunities granted to other similarly situated officers. By 2022, a police union attorney had become involved and asked the Town Board for an independent investigation.

Section 5.5.3 of the Town of Woodstock Employment Handbook states that investigation of a complaint involving discrimination and sexual harassment will be “conducted by someone appointed by the Town Supervisor. In the event the Town Supervisor is named in the complaint…the Town Board will appoint an individual to conduct the investigation.” Section 2.9.4 of the Town of Woodstock Employment Handbook authorizes that “In most situations, an investigation will be conducted by the Town Supervisor or other person designated by the Town Board.” Taken together, these sections provide strong evidence that the Supervisor should personally conduct investigations only if appointed by the Town Board as a whole. In this way, the Supervisor and the Town Board can avoid any appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest. Despite these regulations, Supervisor McKenna has repeatedly appointed himself as investigator, as he did here and as he did in the case of the Shady Dump at 10 Church Road. In both circumstances, his investigations have resulted in lawsuits against the town which we, as taxpayers, are required to pay for. Furthermore, his actions/findings are under scrutiny in each lawsuit.

As a result of his investigation of the allegations against the Chief and Officer Sinagra, while acknowledging the comments were sexual and racial in nature, Supervisor McKenna failed to acknowledge they constituted discriminatory statements/acts or a hostile work environment. McKenna’s report did make some lesser findings of wrongdoing but it cannot be determined what comments and actions he found inappropriate and what he declared to be permissible.

As a consequence of Supervisor McKenna’s inadequate response, a complaint was filed in 2023 with the EEOC who, in 2024, gave permission for the civil lawsuit to be filed. The EEOC complaint was widely circulated on social media and details the alleged discriminatory statements and acts of retaliation. The specific allegations included in the EEOC complaint are, for the most part, repeated in the recently filed federal lawsuit against the town and the individual officers named in the lawsuit. Some of these allegations include failure to provide a hygienic location for a breast-feeding officer, comments by the Chief about the breast-feeding officer including, “who is she to be in here flapping them out” [referring to her breasts while breast feeding in the precinct], the defendant-officer saying he wanted to “skull-fuck” and “hate-fuck” a female officer, and other vile and wholly unacceptable comments. Supervisor McKenna’s choice to singlehandedly manage all aspects of the investigation rather than have a truly independent investigation, as well as the inadequacy of his response, will be a significant part of the evidence against the town in the newly filed federal lawsuit.

Although the previously cited sections of the Employment Handbook appear to provide otherwise, the Supervisor has a pattern of ensuring that all aspects of any investigation rest in his lap. This “policy” has been, in effect, adopted by the Town Board by their failure to change this pattern of conduct. This is an abuse of power which has allowed the Supervisor to insulate himself and others.

Supervisor McKenna’s approach has landed all of us in a situation where our tax dollars will now be used to defend multiple lawsuits which should not be defended. That money would be far better spent to test our water, fully clean up the Shady dump and the overflow onto the neighbor’s property, establish affordable housing, fund programs for our ever growing senior population and address the needs of our youths.

SO WHAT CAN WE DO?

Contact the office of NYS Comptroller DiNapoli. On the website [https://www.osc.ny.gov] you can find a complaint form where you can ask for his office to investigate this inappropriate use of our tax dollars. Go directly to the form at https://www.osc.ny.gov/.../investigations-complaint-form.pdf

You can also call the office of the NYS Comptroller and ask for the Department of Investigations at 888-672-4555

You can email the individual town board members and urge them to settle these lawsuits and to establish a police for independent investigation in response to any complaint where a town employee, volunteer, or elected official is implicated.

You can send op-ed pieces into HV1 and the Daily Freeman regarding these issues and urging the town to settle these lawsuits where our town is in the wrong.

Let our line police officers know we will do what we can so that they never again have to endure such a hostile work environment.

OSC.NY.GOV

www.osc.ny.gov


Airbnb permit fee

At the July 25th Woodstock Town Board meeting, during the Public be Heard, two women – Urana Kinlin and Susan Goldman – requested that the Annual Permit fee for Airbnbs be increased. They did not specify a number. These women were part of the Affordable Housing Task Force. The town supervisor took it upon himself to create a number, $400, and add this to a roster of fees voted on by the Town Board, all of whom did not even know this figure had been added to the bottom of the roster. Following this unjust and unjustified STR fee increase imposed by the Town Supervisor this letter was sent to the town board. To date no acknowledgement or response has been received and demand letters have been sent by the Building Department.

March 12, 2024

Woodstock Supervisor and Town Board,

We are a growing group of owners of Short-Term Rentals calling ourselves “Woodstock Fair BnB,” who have come together in response to the recent STR permit fee increase. This is our second letter as a group, and many of our individual members have written letters as well, with very little response. We are all Woodstock homeowners who contribute to the community in a variety of ways. We expend significant effort and expense to build and maintain small, clean, harmless businesses that fully comply with local codes. We do this in order to make ends meet in a difficult economic environment. We have abided by the town’s STR laws and paid the required annual fees associated with a permit to operate a Short-Term Rental.

Earlier this year we received notice of our annual permit renewal. With neither public input nor explanations of rationale nor intended allocation of funds, the Building Department drastically increased our annual STR Permit fee by 600-1,000%. As a group, we share concerns about the future of our livelihood as a result of this exorbitant increase.

Several of us questioned the Supervisor and the Code Enforcement Officer about the new fees and were informally told that STR permit fee increases were enacted to cover code enforcement costs. This makes no sense because code enforcement problems are caused by STRs who are non-compliant, not by members of this group. STR permits/inspections should not be conflated with the difficulty of policing the non-compliant.

To gain a better understanding of the reasons behind the huge increase, a FOIL request was submitted to the town. To our request for rationale and justification, the answer was “no documents exist.” To our request for a breakdown of how STR permit funds are to be allocated, the answer we received was “Funds are General Fund revenue, no documents exist.” Clearly, no public discussion occurred at Town Board meetings.

Woodstock General Municipal Code Section 260-56, subsection F, simply states that the Town Board will set the STR fee schedule on an annual basis. However, we contend that those few words do not grant unlimited authority to pick a number out of thin air to levy upon citizens for an unexplained reason. This action has a damaging effect upon public trust of our local government. Without trust, ultimately, we all suffer. New York Public Officers Law, Article 6, Section 84, states, “The people's right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society.” Beyond legality, basic civic ethics require an explanation for this increase.

Our group members agreed to pay the previous permit renewal application because it was a reasonable cost for an annual fire inspection. The sudden and unexplained increase is unfair because it is unrelated to the permitting or inspection process and it wrongly penalizes compliant owners. We now ask the Town Board to act in good faith, rescind the excessive fee increase, and engage in public discussion to develop a fair and reasonable fee schedule as it relates to STR applications and renewals.

Sincerely,

Members of Woodstock Fair BnB:Airbnb

Zoning Changes

The affordable housing issue is a big one attracting much attention. Woodstock is not immune. We clearly need affordable housing for artists, seniors and young families. Workforce housing too. There is a lot of talk and energy swirling around Woodstock's decades-long promise to create affordable housing. There are however a few inconvenient facts that are not getting the attention they deserve:

1. Any affordable housing created using state grants will have to be made available to anyone in NY State who is in the housing lottery. This happened with Woodstock Commons and would also be the case with any future Rupco or state financed project.

2. Woodstock could bond to build permanent affordable housing and create its own structure to manage the program. On town owned land for example. This would eliminate the need to open it up to statewide applicants and could rather be focused on local artists, seniors, employees etc. perhaps with a local lottery, for example.

3. The currently proposed zoning changes do not rely on just public state financing for limited projects but rather envisions changing the zoning to allow for a " broad range of development" to quote the Pro Housing Pledge our supervisor just pushed through a couple weeks ago with zero public debate and only three votes. I sat next to someone from the big PR firm HR&A during last week's housing forum and she said to me " one out of every four units built will be affordable with the proposed zoning changes" I said to her Woodstock needs 200 affordable units so at that rate we would need 800 new units to reach 200 affordable which increases the town housing stock by nearly a third. That's if every four units actually includes one affordable unit. A big if.

4. Woodstock cannot rely on open space protection laws to prevent large scale development because it does not have any. Virtually every Ulster County town except Denning has one. We don't. Maybe, just maybe protecting our open spaces and natural resources should come before changing the current protective zoning? The current Comprehensive Town Plan makes doing just that the number one priority for Woodstock residents.

5. Tourism is the primary economic engine for Woodstock. We are quaint, quiet, rural, have great scenery and hikes, mature trees and relatively clean air. We maintain an artist colony identity in visitors minds. It's on every town owned vehicle as well. Tourists will not flock here to view housing developments, gated communities, busy back roads, more pollution and a lot less artists. It's that simple.

6. We stand at a fork in the road IMHO. Does Woodstock want to look just like anywhere in the USA with another couple thousand homes, lots more traffic, spoiled views and a loss of its rich artist identity, or does Woodstock want to achieve what is necessary to create the couple hundred units of local affordable housing for artists, seniors, workers and young families? Waiting and hoping for the private sector to magically make affordable housing appear is going to be a big disappointment. I don't believe it will ever happen when Habitat for Humanity says they spend $500,000 building a two bedroom ranch with donated materials and labor only to sell it as affordable housing for $200,000. In other words, no private developer is ever going to take that kind of loss, period.

I'm all in favor of an affordable housing plan that preserves our town identity and limits itself to what our current needs are. I'm all in favor of following the dictates of the Comp Plan which calls for protecting our natural resources while providing housing for artists and seniors and workers. I'm not in favor of changing our zoning to allow for town wide large scale development that benefits big time builders and big holding landowners. I believe most locals will agree with me since it's all spelled out in our Comp Plan. Read it for yourself.

Urgent Messages

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