According to documents recently obtained by The Cornwall Democrat, Colin Schmitt had knowledge of PFAS contamination at New Windsor’s Butterhill Wells Water Treatment Facility during his 2018 Assembly campaign, but allowed the facility to pump water to residents for seven months after the NYS Department of Health informed the Town. It was only after Schmitt was safely elected and inaugurated to the Assembly post to which he now seeks re-election that the bad news was allowed to come out and the facility taken offline for remediation.
The evidence suggests that Colin Schmitt placed the importance of his 2018 campaign for Assembly above the health of New Windsor residents.
Schmitt became the $60,000 per year Chief of Staff to George Green, the ailing New Windsor Town Supervisor, in December 2017, within a month of his application for the position, with neither public notice of his appointment nor any vote by the Board. According to the “New Position Duties Statement” filed by New Windsor with the Orange County Human Resources Department (who subsequently rejected it), Schmitt was to oversee “multimillion-dollar projects such as [the] new water source...already in development.” That source was Butterhill Wells.
Test reports from NYSDOH at Butterhill indicate the finding of contamination in samples taken in September 2018. An article authored by the eventual remediation contractor cites the fact that the Town was verbally notified in September of that year.
What "oversight" could Colin Schmitt possibly have performed to allow a water project, begun with full knowledge of the potential for PFAS contamination, to go forward without sufficient testing? Not only is there no excuse, but the evidence shows that test results revealing contamination were kept from the public at a time when both water was being pumped from the new plant and, coincidentally, Schmitt was running for the Assembly seat he now occupies.
Now the Town of New Windsor is facing lawsuits from 102 residents resulting from the contaminated water, as well as the added expense of the filtration system required to make the “cleaner, better tasting, more dependable, less expensive” water safe for residents to drink.
Just as Donald Trump puts his career, image, and personal gain ahead of all else to the detriment of our safety, so too does self-serving Colin Schmitt. A contaminated water supply, easily covered up, is no big deal to a politician bound and determined to wield power and avoid consequences, even at the cost of his constituents' health.
Ironically, Schmitt has since been appointed to the Assembly Minority Task Force on Water Quality.
