There was a time on hot summer days when Jackie Monette would carry a lounge chair down to the river that burbles below her house, set it up in the rushing waters and relax. But she doesn’t do that anymore.

In 2016, high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—PFAS—were discovered in Monette’s drinking water well at her home in the upstate New York town of Petersburgh, along with the wells of many of her neighbors. Petersburgh’s municipal water supply was also tainted, as was the Little Hoosic River, where Monette liked to cool off.

“I didn’t know I was sitting in a pool of poison,” says Monette, a 68-year-old retired elementary school art teacher who taught at a local school district.

The source of the pollution was Taconic Plastics, a manufacturer of PTFE (Teflon) and silicone-coated industrial products such as fabrics, tapes and belts. Historically, the company used PFOA—a type of PFAS—in its manufacturing process.

The plant, which was built in 1961 and is still operating, is about a mile southwest of where Monette and her partner, Alan Gaynor, live. With just 1,372 residents, Petersburgh sits on the Empire State’s eastern border with Vermont and Massachusetts. A portion of the Taconic Mountains, a subrange of the Appalachians, cuts through the community, lending the landscape a rugged beauty.