GOP probes EPA response to NY state water contamination

House Republicans are investigating the Obama administration’s and New York state government’s responses to a water contamination crisis in upstate New York.

House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) wants to know why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) didn’t take quick action to protect Hoosick Falls residents from drinking water pollution.

{mosads}The probe comes as drinking water contamination gains national attention, spurred mainly by the lead contamination crisis in Flint, Mich. The EPA was also criticized by Republicans and others in the Flint crisis for not taking action much sooner than it did.

As early as 2014, tests found elevated levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an industrial chemical linked to cancer, in Hoosick Falls’s water.

Chaffetz asked EPA head Gina McCarthy in a Wednesday letter why Judith Enck, the EPA leader for the region including New York, did not take action regarding the chemicals until November 2015, the month she says she found out about it.

“Documents and public statements about the crisis in Hoosick Falls show EPA knew that the village water supply was contaminated in December 2014, but did not take any action until nearly one year later, in November 2015,” Chaffetz wrote in the letter, along with Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), chairwoman of the subcommittee with authority for the EPA.

“The fact that EPA staff at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., knew or should have known about the problem, and failed to communicate with their counterparts in region 2, raises serious questions, considering the health and safety of the residents of Hoosick Falls was at stake,” they wrote.

In the letter to Cuomo, Chaffetz and Lummis point out that New York state and Rensselaer County officials didn’t act on the crisis until December 2015, when it warned residents and advised them to drink bottled water. The state and county knew about the problem a year earlier, the lawmakers said.

“The committee is concerned that a sluggish response to the crisis in Hoosick Falls at the state and county levels caused residents to remain exposed to dangerous levels of PFOA for longer than was necessary,” Chaffetz and Lummis said.

The Albany Times Union first reported on the letters.

EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison said the agency had received the letter directed to it and would respond.

Cuomo has consistently defended his administration’s response to Hoosick Falls, characterizing it as “aggressive action” and criticizing the EPA for not acting sooner.

Chaffetz and Lummis are not yet calling for hearings on the water crisis, though many in New York’s delegation, like Rep. Chris Gibson (R) and Sens. Charles Schumer (D) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D), have sought congressional hearings. New York’s Democratic-led Assembly is also conducting hearings into the crisis and the Cuomo administration’s response, according to the Times Union.