A Merrimack advocate has been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, a yearly award that goes to a person from each continental region who works to protect nature and the environment.
Laurene Allen is this year’s North American winner of the prize, which has been awarded to 233 people in the past 36 years.
Allen began her work as an advocate in 2016, after state officials announced PFAS chemicals, a group of man-made chemicals connected to a variety of health conditions, used at the Saint-Gobain manufacturing facility were found in her town’s water system.
She spent the following years reading everything she could find on that class of chemicals, meeting with neighbors and government officials and consulting with scientists. She co-founded Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, and later helped create the National PFAS Contamination Coalition.
Those groups have advocated for a variety of changes, including stronger state and federal protections around legal PFAS levels in drinking water and for the clean-up of contaminated sites.
Regulations on PFAS chemicals in drinking water tightened and scrutiny on the company that emitted PFAS into Merrimack’s environment – Saint-Gobain – increased. In 2023, the company announced they were closing their plant.
But despite the closure of the plant, Allen says her work will continue.
“There's all these chapter endings, but the book never ends,” Allen said. “If only it was done there. We're left with an environment with contamination everywhere. And we're also left with a site that is yet to have an appropriate cleanup plan.”
Allen said it was astonishing to be chosen for the prize. And, she said, she hopes she can share more of what she’s learned about chemical contamination and what she calls a “broken system.”
“I really want people to know that the Merrimack story is a travesty that never should have happened. But we also know, all across the nation and all across the world, there are many, many communities with environmental contamination, discharges, emissions, and being exposed to things that never, ever should have been allowed,” she said.
Allen says she’s hoping the prize might give her more chances to engage with people on PFAS contamination and advocate for impacted communities, and she’s thankful for the opportunity to bring more awareness to her work. But, she said, she felt somewhat amused at being honored.
“You just do what you have to do,” she said. “I didn't become this person with an agenda. I did it because it really needed to be done.”
Laurene Allen spoke with All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa. You can click the red "listen" button above to hear their conversation, or read the transcript below
You're now receiving this recognition on an international level. But this work really started right here in New Hampshire, in our community. What do you want people to know about communities impacted by PFAS contamination in New Hampshire and what they've been through?
Well, you know, it's been a really long battle. It's been since 2016. And the more we learned, the more we realized how complex it was. So when I officially accept this honor, it isn't just for me, it's on behalf of all the residents in my community who have worked shoulder to shoulder, and also many, many people that I have worked with in the National PFAS Contamination Coalition on our federal asks. And for people who wake up to learn that their environment is not what they thought it was and water that they truly believed was safe is actually impacted by toxic, tasteless, odorless chemicals. I mean, that is really something. So, when you're in that position, I think communities are their own experts. We know what we need. We know what's just and what's unjust.
You managed to do all of this activism work while also raising a family and holding down a full time job, and maintaining relationships in your personal life. What challenges did you face in your advocacy for Merrimack?
Oh my gosh, in my life, I'm a clinical social worker. I’ve had a counseling practice in Milford, New Hampshire for many years, and life-work balance is key. Self-care is key for therapists. We know this. So staying in balance, it took a tremendous impact. I changed my schedule after a short order of time and saw clients [in the] afternoon, later into evening, cut into my evening time and dinner time so I could free up mornings for meetings and coffees and educating elected officials of all levels and really doing what I could. So, it's definitely taken a toll.
Who supported you through that?
Well, everyone that supported me… I don't know that people really know what it feels like when you take on a role like this. It is very hard to imagine. When you go home at the end of your day and you shut off your clinical work mind and you should be transitioning to your downtime, your mind says, ‘Ah, now I need to learn more about that and read this 168 page report on the site investigation and be up to speed. So when I talk at a hearing or when I have another meeting or request to call or an email, I'm informed and I'm speaking from knowledge, not just my emotions.’ So I supported me more than anyone. Being outside, being back in nature settings. That's key. And I never really felt like I asked other people for support because honestly, I would feel like a burden. I'm not by career or nature or who I am personality wise, a person… I'm the person who supports, I'm not the person who says I need support.
What would you say to a younger version of yourself? Did you expect yourself to be doing this kind of work?
Well, I have always had this strong connection with nature in the outdoors. I was 12 years old at a rummage sale, and it was something like 25 cents, I bought a copy of “Silent Spring,” and I read it, and I was really, like, blown away by that. Shortly after that I read in the Boston Globe, I was raised in Massachusetts, where I learned about W.R. Grace and that travesty. And I remember the Boston Harbor cleanup, and I remember the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act when they're first enacted, and being really happy that this nation was seeing that [the environment] and our planet is really, really important. It's where we live. We're part of it. So I knew that I was that person who really got it. And I did my best to live my life as well as I could, but I could never have imagined that I would take on this role. I never set out to be an activist. I will speak when I need to and stand up for people. I have a strong sense of justice, but I never, ever could have imagined this path.
The Saint-Gobain facility was shuttered last May. Is this the end of a chapter for you, or is there more work to do?
Oh, I wish, I wish. I mean, after nine years into this... and when I hear anybody in a bureaucratic position who says, ‘Well, these things take time,’ I want to scream because nine years, almost a decade of someone's life. But this is not the end. This investigation continues. They shuttered. They're in the process of demolishing. They do not have an adequate remediation action plan in place. They're asked to submit one and put it in over two years ago. And it's not adequate. So advocating for what we need is the site cleanup, is number one. And then there's that piece of accountability. Do we have accountability from a named responsible party? We don't. We still need physician guidance. So the environmental work continues. The regulatory work is really stalled right now. Right now, the state is in a place of watching and waiting. That's not acceptable. We were a leader in PFAS at one point in this state. And we can do that still. There's so much more to be done.
Is there anything you would have done differently along this journey?
You question yourself every step of the way. In the first few years you're kind of fresh and have more energy and younger. And you kind of say to yourself, all right, I'm working smart. I'm working savvy. I figured out who does what. I'm getting the right asks to the right people, be it federally or on the state level, on the local level. So we're going to do this thing. And then you feel really good about the meetings and the work, and then nothing happens. And you hear that phrase, ‘These things take time.’ But this is something different. I don't really have my head around this yet. In my head [it] resolves pretty quickly and moves forward pretty quickly. This is really staggering to be in the presence of so many people who preceded me, all the people who have worked together and who have joined in this battle, who know what they need, and people that we have lost along the way. There are people who are no longer with us, who have been impacted. We have to keep in mind environmental protections [are] crucial for environmental health. Environmental health is part of public health, a very, very much overlooked part of public health because we are very reluctant to lay blame and we have a very broken system. You know, we can do better. We have the ability, we have the talent, and we need solutions for all of this because we're all at stake.
