$27 Million Settlement for Hoosick Falls Residents in DuPont PFOA Water Contamination Case

For more than a decade, residents of Hoosick Falls, a small village in upstate New York, drank water laced with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) flowing from a Teflon cookware manufacturing facility operated by chemical companies including DuPont. The contamination came to light around 2014, when blood tests revealed that many residents carried PFOA concentrations more than 30 times higher than the national average. PFOA, a synthetic 'forever chemical,' does not break down in the body or the environment, and long-term exposure has been linked to testicular, kidney, and thyroid cancers.

A federal class action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York on behalf of village and town residents who suffered property damage and elevated chemical levels in their blood. James Bilsborrow of Weitz and Luxenberg served as co-lead counsel for the plaintiff class alongside Stephen Schwarz of Faraci Lange. More than 4,000 claims were submitted by class members during the enrollment period.

After years of litigation and with trial approaching in 2025, DuPont agreed to pay $27 million to resolve the claims. The settlement came without any admission of wrongdoing by DuPont. Under the agreement, distributions were directed toward residents for loss of property value, with checks for property damage expected in August 2026 following final court approval. An additional $6 million medical monitoring fund was established for residents to track long-term health effects from PFOA exposure.

U.S. District Judge Mae A. D'Agostino granted final approval of the settlement on April 29, 2026. The DuPont resolution closed the last major chapter of the Hoosick Falls litigation. Three other defendants, Saint-Gobain, Honeywell, and 3M, had settled in 2021 for a combined $65.25 million. Together the settlements brought total compensation for Hoosick Falls residents to more than $92 million.