Remember when former Gov. Hugh Carey offered to drink a glass of PCBs to show that the chemical, tons of which General Electric Co. dumped into the Hudson River from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, is harmless? How about when critics of the proposal to dredge the river to remove those PCBs argued that it would be more dangerous to disturb them than to let them remain in the sediment? With the decision to dredge finally made and the project soon to begin, it appears the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is prepared to use residents of the village and town of Stillwater as guinea pigs to see just how dangerous PCBs, and dredging, are.

It shouldn’t. As it has already done with Waterford and Halfmoon, the EPA needs to ensure that the village and town have a backup source of drinking water in case theirs is made unsafe from dredging.

This becomes all the more urgent since test results for the village of Stillwater’s wells released last week showed relatively high levels of PCBs (though still well within state and national standards for drinking water). In fact, they were several times the levels for Waterford and Halfmoon, which get their water directly from the Hudson. Before, the EPA could argue that Stillwater was safe because it had its own wells, but no longer. Apparently there is, as the director of EPA’s Hudson River field office put it, “some kind of hydraulic connection between the river and the wells” — one that not only brings the PCBs there but somehow concentrate them.

In the case of Waterford and Halfmoon, the EPA has agreed to pay to hook them up to Troy’s municipal water system if PCBs in their drinking water exceed state and national standards. Now that it knows Stillwater’s wells are already contaminated — and given the fact that Stillwater is even closer to Hudson PCB hot spots than those downstream communities, which means less time to react if polluted water is headed its way — the EPA must provide the same assurances for Stillwater.

The village and town want the EPA to pay to hook them up to the planned Saratoga County water system, but EPA officials have rightly rejected that proposal because the system won’t be finished at least until next year, while dredging will start next spring. Other viable options exist, however, including tying into the Mechanicville system, which would require increasing the capacity of its reservoir, and connecting to the Troy system, which would require running a line north from Mechanicville.

Since having backup water can reasonably be considered part of the dredging project, the EPA could require GE to pay. Or it could split the cost with the company, or foot the bill itself. As long as the village and town don’t have to.