More may be needed
Saint-Gobain agreed last week to provide drinking water to about 1,000 properties in New Hampshire that showed elevated levels of toxic industrial compounds associated with serious health conditions. The agreement includes the towns of Bedford, Hudson, Litchfield, Londonderry and Merrimack.
The agreement also provides a framework should additional properties be impacted. The state began widespread testing in the area in 2016 after about perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA in the water. It later determined the contamination was caused by emissions from a Saint-Gobain plant in Merrimack.
“Ensuring safe drinking water is something we take very seriously,” Attorney General John Formella said in a statement. “This agreement is an important step forward in a continuing, multi-faceted effort to ensure impacted New Hampshire residents have access to clean drinking water.”
The company, which bought the Merrimack plant from ChemFAB in 2000, initially believed it wasn’t emitting anything harmful. But the state said that changed in 2004 after the company installed more sophisticated technology and realized it was emitting the chemical. After the company alerted the state, DES determined Saint-Gobain was exceeding state air limits for the chemical, and the company agreed to significantly reduce emissions.
The state didn’t move to do any groundwater testing until 2016 because there was no indication at the time that the emissions posed a threat to groundwater. That came to light after wells near Saint-Gobain facilities in Hoosick Falls, New York, were found to be contaminated with PFOA. Wells Bennington and North Bennington, Vermont, also have since been found contaminated with PFOA around the company’s now-closed plant.
Democratic Rep. Rosemarie Rung, who lives in Merrimack said she was pleased that the settlement was “bringing resolution for families who have suffered from contaminated water.”
Rung also expressed concerns, though, as do we, that many are still on bottled water and the overall extent of contamination. More work must be done to remedy and compensate those impact by this disaster.