Read the full article by Kevin Landrigan (Union Leader)
“CONCORD — Citizen groups and lawmakers lobbied Tuesday for legislation to give victims more time to sue for damages caused by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFOAs).
The measure (HB 236) would make New Hampshire one of the first states in the country to create a statute of limitations that would be twice as long for PFOA contamination than for other environmental damages.
Lawmakers in Maine and Michigan have been considering the same reform.
Under current New Hampshire law, suits must be filed within three years of the release of the contamination. This bill would raise it to six years and the new clock wouldn’t start until the victim ‘discovered’ they had suffered damages.
‘This bill allows science to catch up with the situation,’ said former Rep. Wendy Thomas, a Merrimack Democrat who first proposed the change last year when she was in the House.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, some of the same officials supported a companion bill (HB 135) that would give a state agency head more power to make polluters immediately responsible for any contamination of drinking water supplies…”