Hoosick Falls, New York, is a village of about 3,500 people tucked into the rolling hills of Rensselaer County, twenty miles northeast of Troy. It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone — where the local plastics factory isn't just an employer, it's the economic backbone of the community. For decades, the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant on McCaffrey Street made Teflon-coated products: non-stick coatings, industrial linings, specialized films. It was steady work. Nobody asked too many questions about what was going into the ground.
Then Michael Hickey started asking questions.
A Son's Suspicion
In 2013, Hickey's father John died of kidney cancer. John Hickey had worked at the Saint-Gobain plant for years. Michael noticed what seemed like an unusually high cancer rate among his neighbors and former plant workers. He didn't have a science degree. He had a hunch and a credit card.
In 2014, Hickey paid out of pocket to have the village's public drinking water tested at an independent lab. The results stunned him: the water contained more than 600 parts per trillion (ppt) of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA — one of the most persistent and harmful chemicals in the PFAS family. At the time, the EPA's health advisory level was 70 ppt. Hickey's tap water was nearly nine times over that threshold.
Today, under the EPA's enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels finalized in April 2024, the legal limit for PFOA in drinking water is 4 parts per trillion. Hoosick Falls' water was 150 times that standard.
The Long Silence
What happened next is a case study in institutional failure — and institutional redemption. Nearly a year and a half passed between Hickey's private discovery and the first state health warning telling residents not to drink the water. According to reporting by PFAS Project Lab at Northeastern University, the New York State Department of Health initially downplayed the findings even after its own subsequent testing confirmed PFOA levels above 600 ppt in four of five village water samples.
The delay wasn't unusual. Across the country, communities discovering PFAS contamination have faced the same pattern: a concerned citizen raises an alarm, officials hesitate, and months or years pass before action begins. What made Hoosick Falls different was the scale of the contamination — and the tenacity of the people who refused to let it be ignored.
In January 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency. PFOA was classified as a hazardous substance under state law. The Saint-Gobain McCaffrey Street plant was designated a state Superfund site. The machinery of remediation finally began to move.
How Deep the Contamination Ran
As investigators from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) dug deeper, the picture worsened. PFOA contamination wasn't limited to the village water supply. Groundwater near the Saint-Gobain plant showed PFOA concentrations ranging from 20 to 18,000 ppt. Near a dump site linked to decades of chemical disposal, levels reached 21,000 ppt — more than 5,000 times the current federal MCL.
The contamination had multiple sources. PTFE manufacturing — the process behind Teflon and similar coatings — had been conducted in the Town of Hoosick since 1955, first by predecessors and then by Saint-Gobain and Honeywell. The DEC also received reports of illegal chemical dumping on properties in the Town of Hoosick and southern Washington County during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The Hoosick Falls Landfill, a Class 2 State Superfund site, was identified as another significant source of PFOA and PFOS that had leached into groundwater.
Private wells in the surrounding Town of Hoosick and neighboring Petersburgh were contaminated too. Residents who thought they were safe because they weren't on the village water system discovered they weren't safe at all.
The Cleanup: Granular Activated Carbon and Consent Orders
Remediation in Hoosick Falls has followed the playbook now becoming standard for PFAS-affected communities. The DEC entered into consent orders with both Saint-Gobain and Honeywell, requiring them to fund and execute remedial programs. The primary treatment technology: granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration, which adsorbs PFAS chemicals as water passes through carbon beds.
GAC systems were installed on the village's public water supply. Filtration systems went into schools and community buildings. For private well owners, the state funded point-of-use treatment systems. The approach mirrors what the EPA and state agencies now recommend for communities facing similar contamination — a layered strategy of source investigation, interim water treatment, and long-term remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater.
At the McCaffrey Street site, Saint-Gobain's remedial investigation has involved extensive sampling of soil, groundwater, and surface water. At the former Oak Materials John Street site, Honeywell is addressing not only PFOA but also trichloroethylene (TCE) and other chlorinated volatile organic chemicals found in soil and groundwater.
Accountability: $92 Million and Counting
The legal reckoning has been substantial. In July 2021, Saint-Gobain, 3M, and Honeywell agreed to a $65.25 million settlement to compensate Hoosick Falls residents for PFOA exposure. The money addressed health monitoring, property value losses, and the broader harm inflicted on a community that unknowingly drank contaminated water for decades.
Then, in 2025, DuPont — whose chemical subsidiary had manufactured the PFOA used in local industrial processes — agreed to a $27 million settlement with the Village of Hoosick Falls, reached on the eve of trial after a decade of litigation. Combined, that's more than $92 million in settlements for a village of 3,500 people.
Separately, New Jersey secured an $875 million commitment from DuPont for drinking water treatment at contaminated sites across that state, and 3M agreed to a $285 million settlement with the State of New Jersey — signaling that the legal tide has turned decisively against PFAS manufacturers.
The Health Toll
Hoosick Falls was included in the national PFAS Multi-Site Study (MSS), a biomonitoring effort that measured serum PFOA concentrations in residents who had been drinking the contaminated water. Blood draws conducted in 2016 and 2018 showed elevated PFOA levels in residents' bloodstreams and provided data on the chemical's half-life in the human body — critical information for understanding how long PFOA persists after exposure ends.
The health impacts of PFOA exposure are well-documented in the scientific literature: increased risk of kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol, immune system effects, and complications during pregnancy. For residents like Michael Hickey, who watched his father die of kidney cancer after years of occupational and drinking water exposure, the health data confirmed what they already knew in their bones.
From Local Crisis to National Standard
Hoosick Falls didn't just change its own water supply. It helped change the country's. The crisis was one of several high-profile PFAS contamination events — alongside Parkersburg, West Virginia; Pease Tradeport in New Hampshire; and military bases across the country — that built the political pressure for enforceable federal standards.
On April 10, 2024, the EPA finalized the first-ever national drinking water standards for PFAS chemicals, setting Maximum Contaminant Levels of 4 ppt for PFOA and 4 ppt for PFOS. The rule also set limits for three additional PFAS compounds (PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA, also known as GenX) and established a hazard index for PFAS mixtures.
Public water systems must begin monitoring by April 2027 and achieve full compliance by April 2029. The EPA estimates that 4,000 to 6,600 of the nation's approximately 66,000 public water systems may exceed the new MCLs and need treatment upgrades.
In May 2025, the EPA announced it would keep the PFOA and PFOS MCLs at 4 ppt while proposing extended deadlines and a federal exemption framework for systems that need more time. The core standard — 4 parts per trillion — has held.
What Hoosick Falls Teaches Us
The Hoosick Falls story is not a story of failure. It's a story of what happens when one person refuses to accept the status quo — and when institutions, however slowly, respond.
Michael Hickey wasn't a scientist, an activist, or a politician. He was a son who lost his father and wanted to know why. The water test he paid for out of his own pocket triggered a chain of events that led to state Superfund designations, nearly $100 million in settlements, installation of advanced water treatment, a federal biomonitoring study, and — ultimately — enforceable national drinking water standards that will protect communities for generations.
At EPR Foundation, we see Hoosick Falls as a reminder of three truths:
First, contamination doesn't announce itself. For decades, the people of Hoosick Falls had no idea what was in their water. That's not an anomaly — it's the norm. PFAS testing wasn't routine, private wells had no monitoring requirements, and the chemicals themselves are invisible and tasteless. Communities can only protect what they can measure.
Second, accountability requires persistence. More than a decade passed between Michael Hickey's water test and the final DuPont settlement. Every step — the state investigation, the Superfund designation, the consent orders, the health study, the litigation — required sustained pressure from residents, advocates, and public officials. Environmental justice doesn't happen by accident.
Third, local crises drive national progress. The enforceable PFAS drinking water standards that will protect 300 million Americans exist, in part, because a village of 3,500 people in upstate New York refused to be quiet about what was in their tap water. Policy follows proof, and proof comes from communities willing to demand it.
As water systems across the country prepare to meet the 2029 compliance deadline, Hoosick Falls stands as both a warning and a model. The contamination was real. The harm was real. And the solutions — treatment, transparency, accountability, and enforceable standards — worked.
The water in Hoosick Falls is treated now. The settlements have been paid. The standards are on the books. But the work isn't over — not there, and not anywhere. There are thousands of communities across America where the next Michael Hickey is waiting to ask the question nobody wants to answer: What's in our water?
Sources
New York State DEC, "Hoosick Falls Area" Regional Remediation Project (updated March 2026) · PFAS Project Lab, Northeastern University, "Hoosick Falls, New York" · EPA, "Hoosick Falls Water Contamination" (2025) · WAMC Northeast Public Radio, "Mariah Blake's They Poisoned the World chronicles decade-long fight for clean water in Hoosick Falls" (July 2025) · EPA, "Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes First-Ever National Drinking Water Standard to Protect Against PFAS" (April 2024) · PMC/NIH, "Perfluorooctanoic acid serum concentrations and half-lives in Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh residents" (2025) · Holland & Knight, "EPA Finalizes PFAS Drinking Water Regulation" (2024) · AWWA, "EPA Announces Changes to PFAS Drinking Water Standard" (2025)