Read the full article by Hadley Barndollar (New Hampshire Bulletin)
“In front of her fellow lawmakers this week, Rep. Nancy Murphy argued Merrimack taxpayers should not be left ‘holding the bag’ when Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation soon closes up shop and vacates New Hampshire entirely.
Murphy’s emphatic testimony came as she introduced House Bill 1415. The proposed legislation would hold PFAS-generating facilities liable for causing total combined concentrations in groundwater or surface water of 100 parts per trillion or more – of the four PFAS compounds for which the state has established standards.
Prior to the legislative filing period, in August, Saint-Gobain announced it would shutter its facility in Merrimack, expecting to wind down operations in 2024. Though not legally attributed in court, the state of New Hampshire has linked widespread contamination of air, soil, and water in Merrimack, Londonderry, Bedford, Litchfield, and Hudson to PFAS from the French plastics manufacturer.
Murphy, a Merrimack Democrat, filed HB 1415 in response to the anticipated facility closure. She called the situation ‘the largest environmental industrial disaster in New Hampshire’s history,’ and the people in her town ‘unwitting victims of corporate greed and laws that protect the perpetrators of harm.'” …