The town of New Windsor filed a federal lawsuit this week to try to recover millions of dollars it spent after a chemical used in firefighting foam at nearby Stewart International Airport and Stewart Air National Guard Base contaminated the town’s drinking water.
The 102-page lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in White Plains, is the latest in a flood of litigation involving PFAS, a chemical invented in the 1940s that has seeped into water supplies and is suspected of causing cancer, low birth weight and other health problems.
Less than a year after finishing a bountiful new water system that cost $31 million, New Windsor had to shut down its Butterhill Park wells in 2019 after PFAS was detected in the water. The same toxic contaminant already had tainted and forced the closure of the neighboring city of Newburgh’s main water source, Washington Lake. Read more…