MidHudson News is reporting that seven years have passed since the toxins PFOS and PFOA were found in Washington Lake, the now-former primary source for drinking water in the city of Newburgh. Subsequent investigations determined the cause was firefighting foam leaching from the nearby Stewart Air National Guard Base. The lake was terminated as the city water source when the chemicals were discovered and since then Newburgh has been getting its water from the New York City aqueduct system. U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney now says city residents should feel secure in knowing the water they are drinking is safe. “The fact is that you have had a pretty comprehensive solution, an expensive one, but a comprehensive solution that kept the people safe,” he said. “In the federal legislation that Senator [Charles] Schumer and I secured last year, you are going to have the Department of Defense bear the cost of the remediation of cleaning up the contaminated areas because it shouldn’t fall on local taxpayers. We’ve got that well under control and residents are safe in drinking clean water,” Maloney said. The state installed a carbon filtration system for the lake, but it has never been used. And the federal government has yet to move forward with the actual remediation of the contamination from the Air National Guard base. The Hudson Valley has poisonous drinking water from these chemicals in several sites. The Columbia County Health Department in February reported that the water supplies for the village of Valatie and New Lebanon High School have tested at PFOS levels above New York state’s maximum contaminant level. In Cairo, the drinking water at the elementary school and in the town are contaminated after years of firefighters testing foam to put out blazes that was made with the chemicals. Likewise with the water in Hoosick Falls in Rensselaer County. Read the full story at midhudsonnews [dot] com.