Union Leader Correspondent BEDFORD — Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics is considering extending public water to at least 64 homes with contaminated wells in Bedford, but town officials are hoping that even more residences will be included in the plan.
“The town absolutely, and I believe the Department of Environmental Services, feel the same way that people on bottled water need to be on municipal water in 2017,” said Town Manager Rick Sawyer.
Although Bedford officials have not received anything in writing from Saint-Gobain, they have been notified by DES that Saint-Gobain has requested a design proposal from Pennichuck Corp. to provide public water to 64 properties.
Sawyer said town officials previously requested that Saint-Gobain consider providing a public water extension to 288 properties in Bedford — not just the original 64 homes where perfluorooctanoic acid was discovered in private wells last year.
“That is part of our request — that Saint-Gobain work toward providing water to the entire area, and at least do the design solution if at all possible,” said Sawyer.
He is still hopeful that Saint-Gobain, which owns a Merrimack plant that is the likely source of the PFOA contamination, will still consider providing public water to the nearly 300 properties.
Elevated levels of private well water contamination were detected at houses on Hemlock Road, Green Meadow Lane, Back River Road, Smith Road and other streets.
“We are hoping to get more definitive announcements in the short term.” Martin said that although Saint-Gobain has requested an estimate from Pennichuck Corp. on design work for about 64 homes in Bedford, that doesn’t mean that discussions aren’t taking place to provide more Bedford properties with municipal water.
Work is ongoing to address water problems in Litchfield and Merrimack as well.
Free blood testing is still being offered to residents who live near the Saint-Gobain facility who have private wells with PFOA contamination above 70 parts per trillion.

Water contamination bill remains in NH House.
"Otherwise if they didn’t want to do that, they could have just killed it."
"The more of these you have in your body the more likely you are to develop chronic illnesses," she said previously.
The House committee is supposed to take up the bill again on Wednesday afternoon, Messmer said.
The bill passed the House by an overwhelming margin last week, but was sent to the House Finance Subcommittee after state Department of Environmental Services officials said it could end up costing more than $30 million if passed into law.
A memo shared with state lawmakers stated Messmer’s bill "provides no consideration of cost, contaminant prevalence or likelihood of making a significant impact on public health protection."
"The consequences would likely include significant additional costs for water system customers."
The EPA classified PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, as "contaminants of emerging concern" because of their potential harm to humans.
The health advisory level for PFOS and PFOA is 70 parts per trillion, but Messmer maintains the state should lower the level to 20 parts per trillion, like Vermont has done.
If the House committee approves the bill with an amendment, it will then go back before the entire House for another vote, Messmer said, and then cross over to the Senate.

The compost facility received paper mill sludge that was contaminated, according to the state.
Then the company spread the contamination through the area with its compost.
Resident Robert McIntosh said he was worried about the “environmental safety of the content of the paper sludge,” and he was joined by two other residents who expressed similar concerns.
The company makes compost by mixing the paper sludge with yard debris, Kip Foley said, according to minutes from the meeting.
So far, no water systems tested have had more than the federal limit in PFOA and PFOS contamination, but tests are ongoing.
The state has tested nine wells and began going door-to-door last week to ask owners to agree to tests.
It’s not clear which paper mill delivered contaminated sludge to the Agri-Cycle, or whether the sludge was contaminated after it left the paper mill.
The state is now checking sludge at six mills and six other facilities that use that sludge.
While the state regulates paper mills, it doesn’t yet routinely test for PFOA and PFOS at the mills, state officials said.
That led them to find well water with elevated PFOA in Cambridge, and eventually a property owner suggested they check to see if Agri-Cycle was the source, officials said.

So far, the military’s cleanup costs have reached into the tens of millions of dollars, and the contamination has initiated widespread concerns about potential health effects.
Sen. Casey’s language, inserted into the 2017 defense appropriations bill, appears to require the secretary of defense, within 120 days of passage, to provide a report to Congress updating them on the department’s progress.
“The language makes clear that PFCs have adverse impacts on public health and directs the Department of Defense to report to Congress on: One, the number of military installations where the fire-fighting foam was used and two, the impact of contaminated drinking water on communities around these sites,” read a press release announcing the language.
While the Department of Defense has already stated where it believes foams have been used, the speed of cleanup has irked communities such as those in Bucks and Montgomery counties, where pollution from the chemicals continues to flow unimpeded from groundwater at the Horsham Air Guard Station into area waterways.
The defense appropriations bill determines the annual military budget, and this year’s version is already delayed, with the military still operating on 2016 appropriation levels.
Last year, Sen. Casey attempted to insert an amendment into the authorization act that would have required the military to, upon discovery of a contamination at a base, notify local residents and provide them with an alternative drinking water source within 15 days, develop a remediation plan within 45 days, and provide a public status report every 45 days.
However, the amendment ultimately did not survive the budgeting process.
“We worked pretty diligently with a number of Senate offices … it’s very rare to have something like this happen,” Rhoads said.
Two things the language does not include are a requirement for the military to provide funding for blood tests for those exposed to the chemicals, and a health study to determine whether or not residents were made ill. “Senator Casey continues to believe that (the Department of Defense, EPA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) should work together to make available health studies and monitoring for affected communities,” a press release from Casey’s office stated.
Enjoying our content?

Hundreds of current and former Bucks and Montgomery residents are party to a mass tort lawsuit for personal injury claims against six manufacturers of firefighting foams.
A writ of summons was filed Feb. 22 in Montgomery County court by Norristown law firm Creedon & Feliciani and others, on behalf of 461 current and former residents and individuals who worked or served on a trio of military bases in the area.
On Wednesday, Creedon & Feliciani stated in a post on its Facebook page that the plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages “as a result of their suffering from injuries/diseases they believe are caused by ingestion, etc.
of water polluted with the chemicals PFOA and PFOS.” The mass tort personal injury suit is separate from several class action lawsuits related to the contamination that have been filed by some of the same firms against the military and foam manufacturers.
Four of the class action suits make similar claims against the foam manufacturers: that their product was defective; that the companies had “known or should have known” the dangers of selling it; and that the companies failed to recall or warn users after its toxicity was established.
However, the class action suits make no reference to seeking awards for personal injuries.
Instead, they focus on winning a blood-testing program and health study, medical monitoring, a private well testing program, and for financial hardships such as cleaning up individual properties or water supplies.
Last month the plaintiffs in the class action suits asked the court to allow them to combine into a single case, and the firms involved are currently preparing a combined complaint, Feliciani said.
New York City law firm Weitz & Luxenberg is interim class counsel, meaning they will serve as a representative of the plaintiffs and firms from each of the individual cases until the court makes a decision about the class action status of the combined case.
Enjoying our content?

$6.5M sought to treat Hyannis water contaminants.
A vote will be taken at the Barnstable Town Council meeting Thursday on whether to appropriate $6.5 million to purchase, design and construct a carbon treatment system at the Maher wellfield on Old Yarmouth Road.
When testing to find a solution effective for treating 1,4-dioxane is complete, another appropriation to construct that treatment system will be brought before the council.
"We really don’t have a choice.
Unfortunately we’re at a place where we have a lot of issues because the area has become highly developed."
The water contamination at the Maher wells is not part of the town’s lawsuit against Barnstable County, in which it contends the chemicals entered some of the wells servicing Hyannis after firefighting foams were used at the Barnstable County Fire and Rescue Training Academy.
Water typically provided to Hyannis residents from the Maher wells is being blended with water provided through an interconnect with the Yarmouth water system at a cost of nearly $1.25 million per year.
"There is a cost savings associated with constructing the carbon treatment unit," Santos said.
The permanent interconnect with Yarmouth will stay active in the event that either town needs to access the other’s water supply, according to Santos.
A health advisory warning pregnant women, nursing mothers and infants not to drink the water in Hyannis was in effect from late May until early July 2016, after the EPA lowered its advisory threshold for perfluorinated compounds.

Honeywell will have to face class claims for negligence, nuisance, trespass and medical monitoring in a New York water contamination case, the Northern District of New York ruled Feb. 6 ( Baker v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. , 2017 BL 34914, N.D.N.Y., No.
The ruling came in closely-watched litigation over pervasive PFOA contamination in the town’s water supply, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York wrestled with unsettled issues of New York tort law in its decision.
“This is a wonderful decision for the people of Hoosick Falls, who may now proceed with their lawsuit,” Robin Greenwald, of Weitz & Luxenberg in New York City told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 7.
“The court also invited the parties to appeal the decision, and we are presently considering our appellate options,” Pokedoff said in an e-mail.
Private water well owners also have a possessory interest in wells harmed by PFOA trespasses, and private nuisance claims may proceed because of the “special loss” well owners suffer from the installation of monitoring equipment, the court said.
It did, however, dismiss private nuisance claims brought by municipal water users.
Those plaintiffs presented public, rather than private, nuisance considerations, the court said.
Medical Monitoring Claims The companies also argued New York law barred medical monitoring claims brought by Baker and other plaintiffs with elevated PFOA levels, at least where there is no existing diagnosis.
There are “several complex and novel issues of New York law as to which the existing case law is significantly muddled,” and they warranted an immediate appeal of the order to the Second Circuit.
The law offices of Weitz & Luxenberg represented the plaintiffs.

Homeowners Near Westhampton Air Base Plan To Sue Suffolk County Over Drinking Water Contamination.
Those tests have always come back negative—which made it all the more surprising when they were contacted in July by Suffolk County officials who wanted to test their well water for two new chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA.
In December, the Suffolk County Water Authority finished hooking up their home to public water at no cost.
“I had heard inklings of possible contamination at the base years ago,” Mr. Green said this week.
The contamination was announced in July when Suffolk County officials said they had detected both chemicals in testing wells at Gabreski Airport.
At the time, Suffolk Health Department officials tested the wells at 69 private homes and said they discovered contamination in eight, with levels ranging from 0.086 ppb to 1.88 ppb.
That raises additional concerns for local residents, like the Greens, who have likely been drinking contaminated water for decades.
Elizabeth and Jerome Liggon, who owned a home on Peter’s Lane on Quiogue for 10 years, said this week that they feared there were issues with their water for years, citing the high number of their neighbors who would complain about various illnesses.
According to Mr. Lanciotti, Suffolk County is currently reviewing all of the notices of claim and has requested a hearing with each individual plaintiff to review their charges and evidence filed against the county.
After the hearings are finished, Mr. Lanciotti said the county will have a chance to respond to the claims.