The toxic water crisis that 2020 Democrats are still figuring out how to talk about

By Alexander C. Kaufman and Lena Jackson | Huffington Post | June 4, 2019

Read the full article by Alexander C. Kaufman and Lena Jackson

"Back then, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, was little more than a chemistry textbook tongue twister. It was also the key, nonstick ingredient in the waterproof fabrics made by the factory almost next door to the Hickeys’ home.

The entire family worked at various points in the plant, owned first by Honeywell International then Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics. Hickey recalled scrubbing the ventilation towers as a young man in little more than light protective gear. Hickey’s father was driving a school bus for the town the day he came home and urinated blood, offering the first visible sign of the kidney cancer that would kill him not long after. His death haunted his son. Hickey’s father never drank or smoked; he was relatively fit. How could he get cancer?

While he strongly suspected their water was tainted, Hickey couldn’t even convince local or state officials to test the water supply for the chemical and ended up doing it himself. The results were definitive: The tiny upstate New York mill town’s groundwater contained chemical levels far exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisory.

At the time, the problem seemed isolated and far too complex to attract the same national attention as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. That’s because the lead poisoning that affected Flint is fathomable to anyone who’s inspected old paint while hunting for housing. PFOA, by contrast, remains an abstraction..."