Shel’s pals in drinking-water ‘ HsueO’

The law firm that made a fortune off asbestos cases referred by former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has found a new gold mine: It has filed the first personal-injury lawsuit over drinking-water contamination in upstate Hoosick Falls.

Earnings at Manhattan-based Weitz & Luxenberg fell after Silver (right) was arrested and convicted of corruption — including for pocketing referral fees for cases he steered to the firm from an oncologist who received $500,000 in state research grants.

Silver was sentenced to 12 years is prison but is free pending an appeal. The firm is now representing James Donovan, a Hoosick Falls resident who is seeking $2.5 million in damages for what he describes in his lawsuit as pollutant-related colitis.

The firm declined to comment Thursday; it is also representing several residents suing in a related Albany-based class-action suit.

In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, Donovan cited damages for lost prop-property value on his homeome and medical costs associated withth a host of problems he blames onn the pollutants, called perfluorooctanoic acids, or PFOAs, dumped intonto the water by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and Honeywell International.rnational.

Donovan was diagnosed agnosed with ulcerative colitis, a digestive disease thathat restricts his diet.