Drinking water shouldn’t be a state secret

Here is a question for users of New York public water systems: Do you know what is in your water before you drink it?

You do not. And neither did Michael Hickey of Hoosick Falls, who testified before Congress that contamination of his community drinking water with PFAO left a “toxic mark on my family and my neighbors.”

Water providers are unable to give advance warning about PFAO and PFAS, the “forever chemicals” that beset the Village of Hoosick Falls and City of Newburgh, or lead, which contaminated home water in New York City neighborhoods, or waterborne pathogens that will cause more than 19 million illnesses nationally this year.

Because public drinking water is assumed safe, contamination events come as a surprise, discovered too late to prevent human exposure. Advancements in monitoring technologies, such as realtime sensors, and immediate notification, such as an Amber Alert, must be a state priority.

Gov. Kathy Hochul should add to her fresh agenda the consumer’s right-toknow water quality in advance, and the state’s support for innovations that will make it possible.

In a throwback to when public information was guarded like a state secret, outdated drinking water regulations, buried in the State Sanitary Code, allow reporting on the previous year’s water quality to be withheld for five additional months. Annual Water Quality Reports for New York’s 2,840 “community water systems,” which serve more than 18 million full-time residents, were due this past May 31 and contain only information for 2021.

Consumers must know to look for their reports. Residents in systems serving 100,000 or more can be told on an internet location. In smaller systems, which are the majority in the state, consumers may have to request their reports. One national study found that 62 percent never see theirs.

And, although consumer notification of a health threat is required within 24 hours of detection, analyses are not required for all contaminants; laboratory detection of certain contaminants demands days; and water systems are not obligated to issue alerts via landlines, cellular phones, text or email. My university uses all four for campus emergencies.

The Department of Health website claims these disclosure provisions guar

antee a consumer’s “right to know” and enable “those with health needs to make informed decisions regarding their drinking.” But right-to-know is a longheld principle of law that guarantees information prior to a health threat, not 17 months, or even 17 minutes, later.

The tragedies at Hoosick Falls and Newburgh underscore the stakes.

In 2015, prompted by unexplained cancers in his community, Michael Hickey arranged for the laboratory analyses that found unreported PFAO in Hoosick Falls’ water. A $65 million class action settlement with

three companies established a fund for the victims.

PFAS in Newburgh water was found that same year. Jonathan Kolb, a Pace University environmental master’s student who studied the controversy, was a local water consumer since birth. At 23, he worries whether “lifetime monitoring will alert me to harmful effects from my exposure.”

In 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the public has a “right to know what is in their drinking water … before they turn on the tap.” It failed at its policy, but New York can succeed by updating its drinking water rules and working with companies and universities, such as mine, to support investments in water

technology innovation.

By executive order, Hochul should: declare as state policy the right-to-know the quality of water from public systems before it flows from the tap; designate a Water Technology Task Force to identify innovations necessary to attain that goal; add water monitoring technology development to the state’s high-tech economic agenda; and create a local assistance program to institute advanced monitoring and real-time alert systems in community water supplies.

She should direct Health Commissioner Mary Bassett to promulgate a freestanding Drinking Water Code; require timely Water Quality Reports be provided to all consumers; eliminate exceptions to contaminant detection; and establish a timeline for implementing best technology standards for water monitoring.

Last November, New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly to support a state constitutional amendment ensuring “the right of each person to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” But there will be no right to clean water until consumers have the right-to-know if their drinking water is clean. The next step is Hochul’s.