ALBANY COUNTY — The county has drafted a law to set notification standards for Albany County health officials to follow up with local municipalities, the county legislature, and the county executive’s office if the department finds a threat to soil or water.

Joanne Cunningham, who chairs the legislature and represents part of Bethlehem, introduced the bill after the town of Bethlehem was not immediately informed about contaminants in New Scotland wells on property close to Bethlehem’s Vly Creek Reservoir.

The bill “is aimed at making sure everyone has access to important information,” said Cunningham at a press conference on Monday, promoting the bill. “And with this law, we want to empower our county experts to share that information. It’s really just that simple.”

Cunningham said that Bethlehem officials have been “working through some algae contaminants that were causing kind of nuisance issues.” No official link has been made between musty smells in town water that Bethlehem officials said was caused by algae and the high levels of E. coli and coliform found in private New Scotland wells near the Vly Creek Reservoir.

Owners of the contaminated private wells believe the culprit is the use of sewer sludge, known as biolids, to fertilize nearby fields. On Jan. 27, Albany County’s executive issued a 90-day ban on biosolids, which are regulated by the state.

At Monday’s press conference, Supervisor David VanLuven called the county’s health department “a critical partner” and said, “Anything that our legislators can do to strengthen the agency and strengthen communication lines is gratefully accepted.”

Bethlehem Councilwoman Maureen Cunningham also spoke at the press conference. She is a strategist on water issues for the Environmental Policy Innovation Center, a not-for-profit organization that works on policies to speed environmental progress.

“Part of my job is helping municipalities across the country, in fact, build trust in their public water supplies,” said Maureen Cunningham. “It’s sad though to say that nearly 60 million Americans have stopped trusting their drinking water.”

Trust declined after the crisis a decade ago, she said, in Flint, Michigan, where the city’s water supply was contaminated with lead from aging pipes.

“A lot of people … have turned to bottled water,” she said, “which is ironic because bottled water is actually less regulated than our tap water. In fact, in New York, we have strict drinking-water standards … We do regulate for over 100 contaminants in our drinking water in New York state.”

Councilwoman Cunningham concluded, “Transparency is really the cornerstone of trust in water supplies so I’m really happy with this local law.”

Bethlehem Councilman David DeCancio echoed Cunningham, saying, “Restoring the community’s trust in government that we will protect them is a fundamental responsibility; we need to make sure we deliver for them.”

County legislator Carolyn McLaughlin, who chairs the Black Caucus, said, “This is a piece of legislation that, although it represents the Bethlehem area at this point, it impacts all of us …. The air, and the water, there are no boundaries. This affects all of us, not just some of us.”

Wanda Williingham, the legislature’s deputy chairwoman, said, “Right now, we are facing many challenges protecting our soil and water — environmental, biological, and chemical. And I argue the best remedy is open communication between all levels of government. Current events have demonstrated how important information sharing is toward ensuring safety.”

Joanne Cunningham elaborated for reporters, “We had an incident in the town of Bethlehem where some well-water testing in the town of New Scotland would have been very useful information for the town of Bethlehem to have.”

Since the New Scotland wells were outside the town of Bethlehem, she said, there were no state or federal requirements to notify Bethlehem residents.

She also said, “We’ve learned a lot from what Bethlehem just went through … We’re always trying to do things better, learn the lessons.”

VanLuven added that the recent issue of “water smell in Bethlehem really underscored that we as a municipality have to dramatically up our game in communications. And we’re saying that because we were pushing information out through Facebook, through Instagram, through nextdoor, on our website — and people weren’t seeing it.”

The town, VanLuven said, is now doing a comprehensive review of its communications “to find out ways that we can do a better job in the future.”

He concluded that last week, water test results from Bethlehem’s water-treatment plant in New Scotland “showed that our water met all of the rigorous state and federal water-quality requirements and was safe to drink. We did a press release. We put it out on social media, and we put it out on our website, but we’re always looking for ways to do a better job of getting the information out.”

The bill will go before the county legislature’s law and conservation committees for review. “If all goes smoothly, it will be voted on at our May meeting,” said Cunningham.