BLOOMINGDALE — The town of St. Armand is asking everyone who gets their water from the town to fill out an income survey to help it apply for a major grant to upgrade its drinking water system ahead of incoming state standard updates on forever chemicals.

Town Supervisor Davina Thurston said the 100% Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grant to address “emerging contaminants” would require no matching dollars from the town.

“This is a very rare opportunity,” she wrote on social media. “Most grants required a 20% to 50% match from the users of the system.”

To apply for the grant, the town must submit an income survey of residents on the water system.

“Due to the time constraints, we will not have time to mail out the surveys,” Thurston wrote on social media.

The town needs 50% of its water customers to respond — approximately 156 responses. Thurston said they didn’t include seasonal residences, businesses, vacant homes or people on private wells.

Of these responses, 50% of responses need to be below a total annual household income of $60,126 to qualify the town for “hardship financing.”

Thurston is hoping to have enough surveys completed by May 15. They don’t need to submit the grant application until May 30, but she wants to give them time to put the data into a spreadsheet and process it. She started calling residents personally on Tuesday. If the town can’t get enough done through these messages, she said they’ll have to go door-to-door.

Copies of the survey are available at the St. Armand Town Hall at 1702 state Route 3. The survey can be downloaded at tinyurl.com/577aav5f. It can be printed and dropped off at the town hall or emailed to davinastaramand@gmail.com.

Anyone who gets a water and sewer bill from the town is asked to fill out the survey. People renting apartments or houses should fill out the survey, too, even if their water bill is paid by the landlord.

The information in the survey responses will not be disclosed to any other parties, and will only be used to qualify for state and federal funding, Thurston said.

To ask questions about the survey, or to take it by phone, call 518-891-3189, extension 1.

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All about PFAS

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The PFOAs in the water that this grant target are part of the PFAS chemical class. PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. These man-made “forever chemicals” were invented in the 1930s by researchers.

They are considered toxic in low levels and have been linked to diseases including testicular cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis and hypertension. The full health risk of exposure to these chemicals is still being studied.

Right now, the town’s drinking water is tested at having 4 PFOA parts per trillion, according to Thurston. Currently, the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum allowable contaminant levels are 10 ppt. But in 2029, that will get lowered to 4 ppt.

“We are trying to get ahead of this requirement,” Thurston said. “It’d be such a waste if we didn’t try.”

She feels the town has a good shot at getting the money, because they’re applying earlier than most. The mandate in 2029 is four years away, so many municipalities aren’t thinking about it yet.

The town gets its water from wells. The new plant would treat the water for PFOAs before sending it out to customers. A new water treatment plant would cost several million dollars to build, Thurston said. The plant would likely be built near where the current one is on state Route 3 next to Sumner Brook. Thurston said a 100% grant would take the load off the local taxpayers.

The town will still be responsible for paying for engineering work before applying for the grant, which Thurston estimated at around $30,000. She said this equates to a few short-term dollars in the annual rate payment of water customers, as opposed to the few hundred dollars they might have to pay without a grant. She said the town will likely be mandated to improve its water quality in a few years when the new mandate begins.

After the proliferation of PFAS in the mid-1900s by companies like 3M and DuPont, nearly every American has detectable levels of PFAS in their blood — including babies, since they can cross the placental wall from a pregnant person to a fetus and be transferred through breast milk.

“They’re in everything,” Thurston said.

These potentially cancer-causing chemicals are useful and have been used in non-stick cooking pans, firefighting foams, adhesives, pesticides, paints, water-repellent clothing and food packaging. They can be carried in rainwater, accumulate in living organisms and do not degrade easily. Since they were invented in the 1930s, these substances have spread throughout the world and have even been detected in the Arctic.

PFAS stick around inside humans and animals and can persist in the environment for decades because they do not degrade easily. These chemicals bind to human tissue and become concentrated in organs. They have a lengthy half-life in humans and can travel through the food chain, meaning they show up in food.

PFAS are a relatively new chemical. The public knowledge that they are harmful is even newer. The regulation and treatment of water carrying them is even more recent.

“Five years ago, we didn’t even test for PFOAs,” Thurston said.

In nearby Lake Clear, the Harrietstown-owned Adirondack Regional Airport has been deemed a superfund site because of PFAS soil and water contamination from the firefighting foam it has kept and used in trainings for decades. Thurston said St. Armand is in a watershed downstream from Lake Clear, so it’s possible some PFAS has trickled down, but unlikely, as PFAS are ubiquitous in every corner of the Earth.

Harrietstown has been part of a lawsuit against PFAS-producing companies, along with hundreds of other parties.

The lawsuit alleges that these companies covered up the toxicity of PFAS so they could still sell them. The lawsuit claims the companies’ research was showing the chemicals could cause cancer or birth defects, but that they denied this publicly for decades.

In 2023, the town opted out of a $1,250 settlement with DuPont, staying in the chase of a jury trial.

The judge in the case did not directly confirm the allegation of a cover up but cited a lot of evidence supporting such a cover up. Ultimately, he said this is up to a jury to decide.

To learn more about this settlement offer and this case, go to tinyurl.com/44paddf3.