NYC NOW - June 27, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to designate a new historic district in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Plus, employees of a city-run juvenile detention center are facing federal charges for allegedly taking bribes in exchange for smuggling in contraband. And finally, more than 4 million New York and New Jersey residents’ drinking water tested above a new federal threshold for so-called "forever chemicals,” at least once last year. The analysis is the latest from the WNYC newsroom and data reporter Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC, I'm Jenae Pierre. When you remove certain things, it's taken away my history. Now my history that I remember is gone. This is Betz Stuy. Why destroy it? In Brooklyn, there are only two fully intact rows of brownstones left in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Now, they've been designated for historic preservation.

The city's landmarks preservation commission okayed the change in a vote this week. The new Willoughby Heart Historic District runs along those two streets, between Marcy and Nostrom Avenues. Local architectural historian Suzanne Spelland says the neighborhood's black homeowners worked hard to maintain the properties as they grappled with redlining and disinvestment. You know, they wouldn't still be here if it wasn't for the black community. The Landmarks Commission cited the architectural integrity of the brownstones and the area's unique sense of place. Owners of landmark properties must get prior approval for renovations or demolitions from the commission. Five current and former employees of a city-run juvenile detention center in Brooklyn are facing federal charges for allegedly taking bribes in exchange for smuggling in contraband. WNYC's Catalina Gonella has more.

Prosecutors say the staffer snuck razors, marijuana, alcohol, and other prohibited items into Brownsville's Crossroads Juvenile Center and accepted thousands of dollars in cash from the young residents and their associates. If convicted, they each face up to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit bribery. The city's administration for children's services oversees the facility. A spokesperson for the agency says the current employees involved are being suspended, and could face further disciplinary action. Attorneys for three of the defendants declined to comment. Another was not available, and the fifth said his client is pleading not guilty. A WMYC analysis shows that the drinking water of 4.3 million New York and New Jersey residents has tested positive for so-called forever chemicals. More on that after the break. More than 4 million New York and New Jersey resident drinking water tested above a

federal threshold for so-called forever chemicals, also known as P-FOS, at least once last year. That's according to a WMYC analysis of data on toxic P-FAS from the Environmental Protection Agency. For more, my colleague David First talked with WMYC's data reporter, Jacqueline Jeffrey Walensky. So, Jacqueline, remind us about PFAS. We tend to say that as P-FAS. What are these things? How did they get into the drinking water in the first place? PIFOS is kind of a catch-all term for this family of chemicals made by people. The full name is per and polyfluorinated substances. And since the 1940s, they've been pretty popular in all different kinds of products, but especially anything that's like non-stick, water resistant, stain resistant, also some flame retardants like firefighting foam. And one characteristic property of PIFO is they last a really long time. They don't break down in the environment. And so any place that we make or use

PIFS, they can leach into the water, the air, the soil, and through those, our food and also our bloodstreams. And research is still progressing on PFOS, but what we do know is that prolonged exposure is linked to cancer, developmental delays, and lots of other problems. Well, New York and New Jersey already had their own rules to protect us from PIFS. So what's new about this federal threshold? New York and New Jersey actually already had caps on how much PIFO can be in drinking water. The EPA standard is just a more stringent version of that. So it says there can be no more than four parts per trillion of PFS in drinking water. It's a little abstract, but it's about half of the amount of PFOS that was formerly allowed under the New York standard and one third

the amount of PFOS that was allowed in the New Jersey standard. So basically what it means is just less PFOS in your water. And because New York and New Jersey already had these rules, a lot of our water utilities already treat their water for PFOS. Lots of them actually already meet the standard. So if you live in New York City, our water doesn't have detectable amounts of all the most common PFOS that are regulated by this new rule. But lots of others in our area are going to have to do something extra to remove the PFAS from the water. The rule goes into effect in 2029 and they're going to start checking more regularly in 2027. And between now and then, they're going to have to spend a lot of money. Nationally, it's going to be about $1.5 billion per year.

Well, Jacqueline, you did some data analysis. What did you find? I did. Thankfully, the EPA already collects data on PFOs in drinking water, even though the rule hasn't gone into effect yet. That's thanks to something called the unregulated contaminant monitoring rule, which is a provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act. And so we looked at that data for about 200 local water systems that collected and reported last year in 2023. And And looking at that data, we were able to find just over 80 systems in our area that tested above the new PFS limit at least once last year. And altogether, those utilities serve more than 4 million people in New York and New Jersey. Okay. What are some of the areas that popped out in your analysis?

So Rockland County's water supplier, it's called Violia. It serves about 270,000 people. And according to the data, it did repeatedly test above the limit for both PFOS and PFO. OA, which are the two most common P-FOS chemicals. Some of the samples had twice or three times the new cutoff concentration. So they're going to have some work to do to reduce that number. We also saw the Water Authority of Western Nassau County, serves Nassau County, about 120,000 people. It had a few samples test above the new limit in June of last year, so time will tell what this year's samples show. Also on Long Island, Suffolk County's Water Authority, which is one of the biggest we looked at, It serves over a million people. It had about eight results over the PFOS limit and nine results over the PFOA limit last year,

although it's worth saying for that one that they took a lot of samples, like hundreds of samples. So it's a small proportion, but still worth noting. And then over in New Jersey, New Jersey American Water, which serves Monmouth and Ocean counties, around 330,000 people. About half of its PFOA samples came back above the new threshold. What are water companies doing to get the... numbers under control? Many of them have already started working and lots of them are going to continue working

in the next few years. I talked to four large water companies that had tested above the limit, and they're trying to get those numbers down by adding carbon filtration systems, also by using this technique called ion exchange, which attracts PIFAS like a magnet to keep it out of our drinking water. But like I said, those fixes are very expensive. So some of the utilities are saying that your monthly bills might go up as the new technology gets put into practice. That said, some water utilities are pushing back on the new

rules. They're saying it's too expensive and that some of these limits are kind of arbitrary. I talked to one environmental activist named Diane Shrout with the Environmental Advocacy Group, NJ Future, and she said, you know, she was happy with the changes, but she also knows it's going to take a lot of work from the utilities to get in compliance. And I understand the frustration of folks in the water utility sector. They're having to clean up. a pollutant that they didn't create. And some of those water utilities, as well as a group of chemical manufacturers, they've actually sued to challenge the law.

They're suing the EPA, though it's not yet clear whether that will go anywhere. But ultimately, like I said, New York and New Jersey residents are already protected from high concentrations of PFAS by our state laws. The new rule will just strengthen that protection even more. And this new threshold is also going to bring a lot more attention to our water supply. What would you say for people who live in some of those areas that you were talking about? Yeah, if you do live in one of those areas that's testing above the new threshold for PFOS and you want to be extra careful or if you're worried about exposure, you can consider picking up a water filter. The EPA actually has some recommendations for ones that are PFOS certified water filters.

That's WMYC's Jacqueline Jeffrey Walensky talking with my colleague David First. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.