State was notified of PFOA pollution in Rensselaer County in 2005

A plastics company in Petersburgh first alerted the state Department of Environmental Conservation in 2005 about its discovery of a toxic chemical in the groundwater around its plant on Route 22.

Late last month, company officials met privately with state regulators because of the earlier discovery and also due to the recent heightened interest in the chemical after it was discovered in the Hoosick Falls village water system at levels the EPA said are not safe for human consumption.

PFOA is a toxic chemical that has been used since the 1940s to make industrial and household products such as nonstick coatings, specialty tapes and heat-resistant wiring.

Multiple specialty manufacturing plants in eastern Rensselaer County and North Bennington, Vt., used the chemical for decades before studies emerged a decade ago linking the substance to cancer and other serious diseases.

PFOA contamination sparked widespread public concern in the area when a Hoosick Falls resident, Michael Hickey, launched his own investigation and had samples of village water tested for the chemical in 2014.

In recent weeks, traces of the chemical have been found in private wells and public water supplies in the town of Hoosick, well outside the village, and in North Bennington, Vt., where Saint-Gobain also had a manufacturing plant that closed in 2002.

The DEC then declared the Saint-Gobain site in Hoosick Falls a state Superfund site, and the agency has called on Saint-Gobain and a predecessor owner of the facility, Honeywell International, to agree to a consent order to clean up the pollution.