A decade after PFAS contamination in southern New Hampshire was made public, state officials have finalized an agreement to deliver safe drinking water to people in Londonderry.
Saint-Gobain, the French company whose Merrimack plant state officials say was responsible for the contamination, will pay $1.7 million toward a project that will extend a water main and allow residents with contaminated wells to use public drinking water. The total project cost comes to about $4.3 million. Londonderry and the state will pay for what Saint-Gobain doesn't cover.
Londonderry is the last place affected by Saint-Gobain’s contamination to finalize a major remediation project. Some residents have been using bottled water for years, as they’ve waited for permanent solutions.
Attorney General John Formella said in a statement that the agreement was “another important step in our efforts to hold Saint-Gobain accountable and assist Londonderry residents affected by PFAS contamination.”
Londonderry lies on the edge of a zone that the company is legally bound to remediate. That zone, which spans roughly 65 square miles, covers only part of Londonderry, splitting the town along High Range Road. People with contaminated wells on the west side of the road will have connections to the new water main paid for by Saint-Gobain. State officials estimate that will cover about 350 homes.
But the company is not responsible for the east side, where even more homes have tested positive for contamination.
“We don’t have the total number because every day we find that there are more houses that show contamination in their wells,” said Shaun Mulholland, Londonderry’s town manager. He estimated between 600 and 800 residents would need public water connections.
Funding remediation
Mulholland said the town is pleased with the agreement, which will allow them to move forward with addressing contamination. But there is a long way to go until all residents with PFAS chemicals above federal standards in their wells have access to clean public drinking water.
Londonderry has identified 12 priority projects to expand the public water system in areas Saint-Gobain won’t cover, which will take multiple years and cost roughly $45 million.
All told, the estimated cost of addressing PFAS contamination in Londonderry could be more than $275 million, Mulholland said.
“This is going to continue to take more taxpayer dollars as less and less money is coming from the state and federal government,” he said. “More and more pressure will be placed upon the town to address this issue.”
Londonderry also has to raise funds for basic things like public education and roads. The town’s one ambulance can’t serve the needs of 27,000 residents every day. But, Mulholland said, the PFAS remediation will cost more than all of the town’s other capital expenses, combined.
Town officials have applied for federal funds that could help offset costs. The community has also received about $50 million in state assistance for PFAS remediation, according to Mulholland.
New Hampshire’s Drinking Water and Groundwater Trust Fund has provided grants and low-interest loans for remediation projects across the state, in part funded by payments from 3M and other companies that manufactured PFAS chemicals.
But Mulholland believes Saint-Gobain should bear more of the expense.
“They contaminated the well water of these private individuals, property owners in our community,” he said. “To me, they should have been responsible for cleaning all that up and providing safe drinking water to all those people.”
Though state officials have determined Saint-Gobain’s operations did put PFAS chemicals into the drinking water of surrounding communities, the company maintains that other industrial plants and consumer products could also be sources.
