Longtime Hoosick Falls resident Michael Hickey is not only an environmental hero, but also a hometown hero.
"By taking his own water samples and having them analyzed at his own cost, and calling attention to this important issue for his entire community," it was announced an an Environmental Protection Agency event Friday, "the contamination is now being addressed, in the public water supply and private wells."
Hickey was honored by the EPA for discovering high levels of the potentially cancer-causing chemical PFOA in the Hoosick Falls water supply.
"I took it on with Dr. Martinez, and we kinda pushed the issue to see if there was anything we could do to clean it up in our area, and it's grown since then," Hickey said.
When he took the initiative to test his own water in 2014 after his father died from kidney cancer, Hickey never thought he would he would be receiving awards for his work two years later.
"When you do something like this, this isn't really what your main goal is," Hickey said. "The main goal for us was to get the water cleaned up, and the EPA did a fantastic job in helping us."
According to the Department of Health, the municipal water in Hoosick Falls is now safe to drink because of a temporary filtration system. The water crisis in the small Rensselaer County village has since sparked a sense of awareness across the state.
"With what we did with testing for the PFOA, other communities are able to go in and test as well," Hickey said.
With water contamination issues now a hot topic across the country, Hickey is happy to have made a difference in the community he calls home.
"There's continuing problems, and it's kinda the way of the world of the industry right now, and the lifestyle we've lived for so long," Hickey said.