[CPEO-BIF] Well-testing in East Fishkill

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Well-test hearing draws scant turnout

Health official sees sign of trust

By Dan Shapley
Poughkeepsie Journal (NY)
April 22, 2005


FISHKILL -- When Denis Callinan bought his East Fishkill home nearly two
decades ago, he didn't realize the water drawn from his well could make
his family sick.

In a sparsely attended public hearing Thursday on a Dutchess County
Board of Health plan to require testing certain private wells for
chemical contaminants and salt, Callinan described taking his son to the
hospital with a serious case of hives. The symptom disappeared once the
chemical tetrachloroethylene was filtered from his well.

His is one of 102 families in the Shenandoah area of East Fishkill whose
home has a filter because of contamination from a defunct IBM Corp.
contractor's microchip cleaning facility.

''It's something, when we closed on the house, we should have known,''
Callinan said. ''My children and my family drank this water for 17 years.''

The drive to require well tests originated in his neighborhood five
years ago when the colorless, odorless chemical was discovered after
being dumped about 30 years earlier. A government study said residents
could face a greater risk of cancer because of the contamination.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/friday/localnews/stories/lo042205s3.shtml

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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