This story was originally produced by the New Hampshire Bulletin, an independent local newsroom that allows NHPR and other outlets to republish its reporting.
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services has channeled over $223 million in state and federal dollars to PFAS response efforts over the last seven years. But extensive investment, and work on the ground, is still needed to keep abreast of the man-made problem, according to a May report from the department.
The report, presented to the Governor and Executive Council on Wednesday, July 8, summarizes funding appropriations from the New Hampshire Legislature, federal government, and settlement trusts to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services’ PFAS Response Fund and PFAS-specific efforts in recent years.
PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” encompass thousands of man-made substances used in manufacturing. Exposure to the chemicals, even at small concentrations, is linked to a range of health concerns, from certain cancers to pregnancy complications. They are slow to break down and accumulate in both people and the environment, where they are deposited through pollution from manufacturing, the breakdown of consumer goods, and waste.
The chemicals have been documented across New Hampshire, as the May report summarizes. NHDES tests for a handful of PFAS chemicals that are regulated by the state and federal government, including PFOA and PFOS. Across public water supplies in the state, about 30% have tested positive for some level of PFAS contamination, according to the report; about 7% of water systems exceeded safety standards for the chemicals, requiring the system administrators to pursue remediation, such as filtration, or close the affected water supply.
Contamination is not spread equally throughout the state. Certain areas of New Hampshire have higher PFAS levels than others, such as the town of Merrimack and surrounding communities. The state blames a former plastics manufacturing plant, owned by French company Saint-Gobain, for polluting the region with PFAS-laden emissions that were later deposited on the ground, resulting in pervasive drinking water contamination and potentially higher rates of certain cancers among locals.
About 45% of New Hampshire residents drink from a private well, and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services has also tested about 5% of private wells for PFAS. The department prioritizes high risk wells for testing, according to the report, a practice they said likely inflates the percentage of wells that yield PFAS detections. About 56% of the approximately 12,000 wells tested as part of this program had levels of PFAS that exceeded limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Local testing data is also available on the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services’ PFAS sampling dashboard.
Where the money goes
More than $106 million has been directed by the New Hampshire Legislature for PFAS work since 2019, according to the report. The majority of that funding, about $97.7 million, went toward drinking water remediation. That includes funds for filters to remove PFAS from water supplies, or linking homes that rely on contaminated private wells to public water supplies. Large infrastructure projects are ongoing in southern New Hampshire to expand capacity at existing municipal water supplies, extending public water access to residents in towns impacted by PFAS contamination, according to the report.
Other appropriations from the Legislature detailed in the report included $8.5 million for investigating, testing, and monitoring PFAS contamination across the state, and approximately $250,000 for administration of a ban on certain consumer products with intentionally added PFAS.
Other funding sources totaled an additional $116 million. They included funds from the American Rescue Plan Act ($26 million), appropriations associated with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (about $85.67 million), and funding from the New Hampshire Drinking Water and Groundwater Trust Fund ($5 million).
Those dollars supplied loan and grant awards for water systems, municipalities, and private well owners for drinking water infrastructure and remediation, as well as PFAS testing and analysis, such as continued private well sampling, according to the report.
The New Hampshire Drinking Water and Groundwater Trust Fund contains funding from groundwater contamination settlements and is administered by an advisory commission to fund remediation and other drinking and groundwater protection projects.
At the meeting of the Governor and Executive Council on Wednesday, Councilor Janet Stevens praised New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Commissioner Robert Scott for leveraging federal funds in the department’s PFAS response efforts.
“He’s done an exemplary job tackling this ongoing problem,” she said.
Waning funds, future directions, and a request for less reporting
Of the legislative funding that has been channeled through the department to address PFAS, much has been disbursed or spent, according to the report. There is no portion of the response fund that remains available for grants, while funds to cover program administration and PFAS testing and studies are “limited,” according to the report.
The department also suggested possible future directions for work to understand and combat the impact of the chemicals in New Hampshire.
This included a recommendation to expand eligibility for future loans and grants, such as by including public and nonprofit landfills and industrial facilities. Funds could help develop treatment infrastructure for effluent from those facilities — like leachate, or “trash juice,” which often contains high concentrations of PFAS — to help reduce its forever chemical load before it is sent to a wastewater treatment plant, the report says.
The department also recommends adding certain PFAS-containing floor cleaning and maintenance products to the state’s list of banned consumer products. Under another proposal, fishermen could donate their catch for PFAS analysis to expand knowledge of the PFAS content of fish. A similar program is in place to gather information about the accumulation of the toxic metal mercury in New Hampshire’s fish.
Another recommendation centered on the department’s role in compiling and disseminating data and reports on PFAS in New Hampshire. The department requested a reduction in the total number of similar reports they are required to produce related to PFAS testing and response efforts.
The department is required to produce two annual reports with PFAS monitoring data, as well as an annual report about PFAS response work and another report once every three years about the consumer product control program. The department requested to consolidate those into one report released every two years.
Testing data would still be collected and available online, the report states.
