Read the full article by Kimberly Houghton
“MERRIMACK — A new area of groundwater contamination has been discovered in Merrimack, this time at one of the town’s two parks.
According to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, a monitoring well at Watson Park recently detected 88 parts per trillion of perfluorooctanoic acid; the state standard is 70 ppt.
This past spring, a member of the Citizens for Clean Water in Merrimack urged the state agency to conduct groundwater testing at the park at 441 Daniel Webster Highway, which previously housed Harcros Chemicals.
The park is about two miles away from Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, the company that originally discovered PFOA in its faucets more than two years ago.
As part of the state’s Groundwater Contamination Notification Program, five local property owners who have private wells near Watson Park were notified at the end of August about the newly discovered contamination…
The letter stresses that DES does not know if the contamination has impacted the five private wells nearby, asking homeowners not to be alarmed. The correspondence, however, includes a list of nearly 10 laboratories that conduct water tests for polyfluoroalkyl substances if the property owners wish to have their wells tested for possible contamination.
Some of the properties near Watson Park that were notified include homes on Loop Road and Greenwood Road.
The day after the letters were sent, the New Hampshire Congressional Delegation called on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to conduct an in-depth evaluation of community exposure to PFAS contamination in Merrimack.”