Rockland, a New York Hudson River Valley county, has been subjected to an uphill battle with its largest distributor, Veolia Water NY, formerly known as Suez Water, in combating persistent levels of harmful, toxic PFAS in their water sources. Veolia Water’s consistent negligence in addressing up-to-date Environmental Protection Agency advisement standards, particularly through their inaction and irresponsible lack of transparency about solution-based plans to combat the chemicals with known linkage to adverse health effects such as kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, decreased immune response, and decreased birth weight and skeletal birth defects, has been met with significant resistance by over 80 organizations since 2021. Their efforts culminated in a sincere open letter to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, spearheaded by advocacy group Rockland Water Coalition, that laid out a clear call to action of 7 central demands: 

1. Eliminate PFAS chemicals from our water as quickly and comprehensively as possible. 
2. Keep the public informed about the full extent of the contamination and the clean-up process. 
3. Test comprehensively and publicly post the results. 
4. Hold polluters accountable. 
5. Provide up-to-date information to healthcare providers and free blood testing to vulnerable populations such as pregnant women. 
6. Regulate all PFAS in drinking water together as a class at the state level. 
7. Support legislation to ban the production of PFAS in non-essential uses.

Since then, the stage and status of Veolia Water’s execution in 2023 has been far from transparent. Although the cleanup has started and some contaminated wells have been pulled offline, completion is said to be delayed until the fall of 2023 because of delays in approval and, unfortunately, routine, ironically predictable supply chain limitations. Sub-sections of Rockland, such as Nyack Village, report that their water department’s treatment plan is being retrofitted to include a system capable of removing PFOA, a variant of PFAS. The Rockland Department of Health is allowing the Nyack Water Department to accomplish this by August 2023. My particular angle will focus on the Coalition’s perception and Rockland community members who are aligned with the call to action on how well their demands from 2021 have been met by the local and state government, as well as by Veolia Water, including their concerns regarding whether these entities will honestly implement solutions to address up-to-date EPA conclusions.