How a small community fought for justice after finding forever chemicals in drinking water

Geoff Bennett:

So-called forever chemicals are both harmful to our health and are everywhere.

William Brangham profiles a new book that tells the story of how these extremely durable chemicals came to be so ubiquitous through the eyes of one small community in Upstate New York that decided to fight for some measure of justice.

William Brangham:

And this is him and his buddies?

Michael Hickey, Hoosick Falls, New York, Resident:

Yes. Yes, that was on one of the golf trips.

William Brangham:

John "Ersel" Hickey was a fixture in Hoosick Falls, a once thriving industrial town in Northeastern Upstate New York near the Vermont border. He raised a family, worked at the local manufacturing plant.

This is the bus he drove?

Michael Hickey:

One of them, yes.

William Brangham:

And he drove a school bus.

Michael Hickey:

He did both jobs for 32 years. He was only retired for seven months before he passed away from…

William Brangham:

Seven months.

Michael Hickey:

Seven months before he retired before he passed. And I had a tough time.

William Brangham:

Ersel died from kidney cancer. He wasn't a smoker or a drinker, and something just didn't sit right with his son Michael.

Michael Hickey:

A year after, a local teacher got sick and she passed away in her 50s. And then the wheels started turning in my head of, why do we seem to have all these illnesses? So I started wondering, what ties everybody together? What could it be? And, obviously, that's water.

William Brangham:

The plant where his dad worked, then owned by the company Saint-Gobain, used Teflon coating. So he Googled Teflon and cancer.

Up popped a study from West Virginia that showed a likely link between the chemicals in Teflon and various cancers, including kidney cancer. Hickey approached a local family doctor, who said, yes, he had seen a lot of cancer in his patients, but the city and the county wouldn't test the water.

Michael Hickey:

So I went and I tested the water at my house, my mom's house, the local Dollar Store, McDonald's. And I came back and I was right. Our water was contaminated with these chemicals.

Mariah Blake, Author:

One of the things that I really remember from our first meeting is that he said — he told me that he got his political news from ESPN.

(Laughter)

Mariah Blake:

So — and yet somehow he was spearheading this fight against multiple government agencies and giant multinational corporations to get his community clean drinking water. And he was doing it because he was heartbroken over the death of his father.

William Brangham:

Journalist Mariah Blake wrote the book "They Poisoned the World," which tells the story of the discovery Michael Hickey in the yearslong environmental and legal fight he helped launch.

Mariah Blake:

That was the genesis. It was a heartbroken son trying to figure out why his father had gotten sick, and he wound up discovering that the entire community was drinking water that was highly contaminated with a toxic chemical that industry had known was dangerous for decades.

William Brangham:

The chemicals in Hoosick Falls' water were forever chemicals, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

Man:

Teflon is a wonderful electrical insulator and resists a lot of moisture too.

William Brangham:

They're extremely resilient, durable synthetic chemicals that have been used in hundreds of products.

Mariah Blake:

They helped usher in the air of space travel and high-speed computing.

Narrator:

You see, DuPont technology help make today's tiny electronic circuits possible.

Mariah Blake:

They have enabled lifesaving medical devices. They have also transformed thousands of everyday items, things like outdoor clothing, dental floss, furniture.

On the other hand, they are probably the most insidious pollutants in all of human history and they are literally polluting the entire planet.

William Brangham:

In her book, Blake explains that, unlike many developed countries, in the U.S., new chemicals like PFAS are to be presumed safe until proven otherwise.

Man:

Nothing sticks to Teflon.

William Brangham:

She also documents how, going back decades, both industry and government officials knew these chemicals were dangerous to human health.

Mariah Blake:

The U.S. government scientists had determined as early as 1943 that these chemicals were highly toxic and that they were accumulating in human blood. But regulators and the public didn't learn that until much, much later because this information was withheld.

Emily Marpe, Former Petersburgh, New York, Resident:

Is that your best friend Eli?

William Brangham:

Emily Marpe also grew up in Hoosick Falls, but she eventually saved enough money to move out of her trailer and into her dream house in nearby Petersburgh, New York. She called it cloud nine.

Emily Marpe:

I remember the day of the closing. And the previous owner handed me the keys, and I just looked at it and was like I'm now on cloud nine, because we kind of went through the steps together.

William Brangham:

That's where the name came from?

Emily Marpe:

Yes. That's what it felt like.

William Brangham:

The dream was short-lived. After the revelation in Hoosick Falls just 11 miles away, her county tested the water in Petersburgh, where another factory was using PFAS. The Health Department called with terrible news.

Emily Marpe:

He told me what the results were and he's like, you need to even stop brushing your teeth with it.

William Brangham:

That day?

Emily Marpe:

That day. Like, I literally fell like to my knees in my driveway dry-heaving.

William Brangham:

Marpe reached out to Michael Hickey on Facebook and he shared all the research he'd gathered and she devoured it. She also decided to test her family's blood.

PFAS in a person's blood is measured in nanograms, or parts per billion. Under two parts per billion would be considered safe. Between two and 20 is when the potential for harmful effects start. Emily Marpe's kids had over 100 and 200 parts per billion. Her own numbers were even higher.

Emily Marpe:

My children were violated. Who has the right to do that? Who? I mean, you're altering their organs, their DNA, their blood, their health outcomes. I mean, it's one thing if they decided to pick up a cigarette when they got older, chose to drink. At least there's somewhat of a choice in that. There was no choice in this.

Mariah Blake:

They had never really taken much interest in politics or environmental issues. They had spent their lives believing that there were systems in place to protect them, and now that trust had been completely shattered.

But these people, the people of Hoosick Falls, rather than becoming cynical or resigned or wanting to burn it all down, they fought like hell to change the system for the better, because they thought that was the best way to protect their communities and their families.

Man:

Well, things got heated tonight at the village board meeting in Hoosick Falls.

William Brangham:

Against huge odds, Hickey and Marpe and others decided to fight. They badgered local officials, they went to the state Capitol, they testified before Congress in D.C.

Emily Marpe:

We're suffering the health effects. They're already here.

Michael Hickey:

There's 20 years of research on PFAS or if not more, and we just need to do some commonsense legislation.

William Brangham:

And they filed multiple lawsuits against the companies. In 2021 and again in 2025, they won. The four major companies involved, 3M, Saint-Gobain, Honeywell and DuPont, all settled large, multimillion dollar class action lawsuits over the pollution they caused.

In statements to the press, Saint-Gobain said it valued the health, safety and well-being of its employees and the communities in which it operates, while Honeywell pointed to its remediation efforts, including the funding of a new water treatment facility in town.

In their settlements, residual got access to a new unpolluted aquifer, regular ongoing medical monitoring and compensation for the decline in their home values.

Mariah Blake:

It was a long battle. They spent eight years fighting this fight, but, in the end, they accomplished just about everything they set out to accomplish.

Emily Marpe:

Say hello.

William Brangham:

But for the residents of Hoosick Falls and Petersburgh, New York, the successful end of their legal battle is bittersweet.

Emily Marpe:

A company can just dump their stuff all over and I can drink it for years, and nobody goes to jail. Nobody gets punished. Nobody — there's no real recourse, except, OK, yes, we won a class action, but it's just money. It doesn't give me back the time with my kids. It doesn't give me my dream home. Gone.

Michael Hickey:

It's a success, I think, for some that look at it. For me, it's not.

William Brangham:

It's not?

Michael Hickey:

We have lost so much in between. We have lost good people that could have been here to have full lives. And they lost that. You can't ever get that back.

William Brangham:

Nationwide, attorneys now predict a wave of lawsuits against companies over PFAS chemical pollution that could dwarf the asbestos and tobacco settlements.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm William Brangham in Hoosick Falls, New York.