http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/nyregion/lawmakers-skeptical-hoosick-falls-water-crisis.html 2016-09-08 03:39:34 Lawmakers Skeptical of State’s Explanation for Hoosick Falls Water Crisis At a legislative hearing, New York Department of Health officials placed blame for the upstate water crisis on the Environmental Protection Agency. === ALBANY — For the second time in two weeks, New York State Department of Health officials sought to blame the Environmental Protection Agency for a contaminated water crisis in upstate New York, saying on Wednesday that they were confused and hamstrung by changing federal standards on perfluorooctanoic acid, a toxic chemical known as PFOA. But again and again, lawmakers at a joint legislative hearing seemed skeptical of the state’s explanations about what happened in Hoosick Falls, a riverside hamlet where PFOA has been found in dangerously high levels. “There’s a nice game going on where you’re going to blame the E.P.A.,” Assemblyman It was a local resident, Michael Hickey, who first raised alarms about PFOA in the public water supply in the summer of 2014. It took nearly a year and a half for state officials to warn residents to not drink the water, acting only after the E.P.A. — the very entity that the state now blames for the crisis — had issued such a warning. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has repeatedly defended the state’s response to the crisis in Hoosick Falls. Nonetheless, the response was the subject of The testimony on Wednesday was less emotional, but more contentious, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle sharply questioned Dr. Howard Zucker, the health commissioner, for several hours. “Would you acknowledge that in this particular community that the general public does not seem to have been adequately informed?” Dr. Zucker said he believed that the state had informed residents, via village and county officials. A formal warning about not drinking the water, however, did not come until December. Such answers did not please environmental groups. “When it comes to PFOA, Dr. Zucker failed to abide by the precautionary principle,” said Peter M. Iwanowicz, the executive director of The hearing came the same day as the E.P.A. proposed adding the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant — identified by the state as the source of the PFOA — to the federal The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation issued a statement citing its own “ongoing and aggressive response” to the Hoosick Falls water, and saying that the E.P.A. was “finally acting” on a January response for federal Superfund consideration. Billed as a hearing on statewide But the central topic on Wednesday was Hoosick Falls, and the state’s performance. And by and large, the reviews were not positive, particularly with regards to keeping people informed of the risks. “Somebody,” said Assemblyman