field notes

I live in Newburgh, New York, a city of thirty thousand a short drive from the Hastings Center's Garrison campus. In 2016, residents were informed that our drinking water contained elevated levels of perfluorooctane sulfonate, a chemical the Environmental Protection Agency calls an "emerging contaminant of concern." The contaminant's long-term health effects are poorly understood: it might cause cancer, or birth defects, or thyroid issues, or it might not. Newburgh's water contamination is a problem that is both mine and not mine. I'm a relatively recent white transplant to a city with a complex racial and economic history. I proudly call it home, but I am, in many respects, an outsider. I drink the water-and I'd done so for months before the city declared a state of emergency and switched its source-but I was exposed to the contaminated water only briefly and am well insured and in great health. Many of my neighbors are not.