When Merrimack residents learned in early 2016 that we had been drinking water that was contaminated with toxic PFAS chemicals for years due to a lack of state regulations, we turned to our elected officials for support, including our District 11 state senator at that time, Gary Daniels. Senator Daniels, along with our Merrimack representatives who were in office at that time, were consistently on record minimizing the contamination, denying health impacts and staunchly standing by the choice of the New Hampshire Republican majority to defer to a free market approach, thus allowing our polluter to continue the harm.

Merrimack residents who had done their own research organized and formed Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water as a direct result of the obstruction by those elected to represent us, who not only worked to keep proposed legislation from passing but continually assured our local government and water municipality that there was no evidence of harm from our long-term and ongoing exposure to PFAS in drinking water.

As co-founder of the citizen advocacy group Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, I reached out by email many times over the years to Senator Daniels who did not respond until it became politically advantageous this year to add his name to citizen sponsored PFAS legislation that ultimately failed to pass the NH Senate. Unlike his opponent, Shannon Chandley who worked to get PFAS regulated in NH drinking water, Daniels has completely failed us on PFAS legislation. Too little, too late, Gary.