No Penalty For Seeking Alternate Water Source

NEWBURGH – A claim by US Senator Charles Schumer last week that the Air National Guard will penalize the City of Newburgh for seeking an alternative water source following the discovery of dangerous chemicals in Washington Lake, is inaccurate, according to an official of the Air National Guard.

Washington Lake was shut down some four years ago when PFOA and PFOS from the Stewart Airport Air National Guard Base was found to have migrated into it.

Schumer said last week Newburgh would be penalized for seeking an alternative source, but Nicole Wireman, the Air National Guard’s restoration program manager told an advisory committee meeting Wednesday night that is not the case.

“In fact we applied the efforts that were made to find that alternate drinking water source in 2016 and also to install a filtration system in Lake Washington in 2018 which treats PFOS and PFOA in drinking water to acceptable levels,” she said.

Newburgh has been getting its drinking water from the New York City Catskill Aqueduct with the state picking up the tab.

On Thursday afternoon, Schumer spokeswoman Allison Biasotti released this statement. “Senator Schumer was pushing for clarity on the USAF policy due to their ongoing failure to respond to requests for answers on the policies ranking sites for clean-up and how they would be applied to the Stewart clean up process. Following the disturbing news that the Air Force could penalize the City of Newburgh for logically and swiftly switching drinking water sources upon the discovery of the long-standing and widespread PFOS contamination, Senator Schumer immediately jumped into action with both a letter and direct call to Secretary Barrett. Senator Schumer believes, as he always has, that the contamination of Washington Lake and all of its tributaries was undeniably caused by the Air Force, making it their responsibility to not just clean it up, but to prioritize and expedite the clean up. Following his call, Schumer is pleased to have finally secured a commitment from the Air Force this week that put Newburgh back in the running for the next step of the clean process. Now, Schumer will continue his relentless advocacy and push for Washington Lake to be selected for clean up ASAP.”