Funds from PFAS settlements are coming to New Hampshire. How will they reach affected towns?

The settlements will be paid out in several phases, but New Hampshire expects to receive about $56 million during the first phase. (New Hampshire Bulletin file photo)

Municipalities that have invested in expensive projects to address “forever chemicals” in drinking water will see some relief from settlements with certain companies deemed liable, though the payments are not expected to cover the full cost of handling toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services laid out a plan to distribute an initial $45 million in settlement dollars across PFAS-affected public water supplies Nov. 17 during a meeting of the New Hampshire Drinking Water and Groundwater Trust Fund Advisory Commission.

“No, everybody’s not being made whole. But again, you’re getting, I don’t know what the best figure is — 20 cents, 25 cents on the dollar that you may not have gotten before, so be happy,” NHDES Commissioner Robert Scott said at the meeting.

The settlements

The $45 million discussed Nov. 17 is an initial portion of settlements with the chemical companies 3M and DuPont resulting from a nationwide class-action lawsuit. NHDES expects that these settlements and two others involving the companies Tyco Fire Products LP, Chemguard, Inc., and BASF Corporation will continue to bring remediation funding into the state. Exactly how much remains unclear, PFAS Response Administrator Amy Rousseau said at the meeting.

The companies involved manufactured PFAS, which are also known as “forever chemicals” for the thousands of years they can potentially endure in the environment without breaking down, and firefighting foams that contain either PFAS or dangerous related chemicals. Through the litigation, New Hampshire and other states are seeking damages for the harms caused by PFAS and the firefighting foam, according to a September press release from the New Hampshire Department of Justice.

The settlements will be paid out in several phases, but New Hampshire expects to receive about $56 million during the first phase, according to the release. About $45 million of that total is estimated to be available for distribution after litigation costs and attorney’s fees are paid, according to NHDES; however, NHDES and the New Hampshire Department of Justice are not set to be paid from the funds, according to information provided by NHDES Nov. 17. 

The state expects to have about $26 million in hand by the end of the year, Rousseau said at the meeting; the rest of the approximately $45 million will follow in coming years. The exact amounts of future disbursements aren’t yet clear, according to NHDES, and payments will likely come in installments. Additionally, down the line, New Hampshire could see another $6 million to $10 million from settlements still in litigation, according to the September press release. 

Private homeowners across the state have also made significant investments in water treatment systems. But these settlements deal exclusively with public water supplies and can be applied only to public systems, said Rousseau.

New Hampshire waterways, residents affected

PFAS released into the environment contaminate soils and groundwater. The chemicals have been linked to health impacts including some cancers, decreased fertility, hormonal imbalance, immune system depression, obesity, and developmental delays, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

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Contamination is present at sites around New Hampshire, and concern about potential effects is, too. A type of kidney cancer previously linked to PFAS exposure is about 38% more common in Merrimack than in the rest of New Hampshire, a preliminary Dartmouth study concluded in October. That study did not assess causality, but researchers noted that PFAS are much more concentrated in the Merrimack area than in many other areas across the state. NHDES has said much of that contamination came from the former Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant, and legislators and advocates from the area contend that area residents suffer health consequences from the plant’s pollution. 

While research into the true extent of PFAS-related health concerns is ongoing, for two major types of PFAS chemicals called PFOA and PFOS, there is no level of exposure that does not entail at least some risk to human health, according to the EPA.

Making contaminated water safe again is costly

Water supplies where PFAS are detected must be treated to comply with EPA and state guidelines. Removing PFAS contamination from groundwater is intensive and costly. Public water system administrators around the state who have discovered PFAS in their supply have invested significantly in technology to make their water safe to drink.

In Merrimack, where water from public wells was found to contain PFAS above allowable levels, the Merrimack Village District has invested heavily in filtration systems that use activated carbon to remove the chemicals. The installation of treatment facilities for four wells has cost the district about $14.5 million, according to the district’s website; this included allocations from the district’s budget as well as state revolving funds, loans, and grants, business manager and water quality specialist Jill Lavoie said in an email. 

Distributing the funds

NHDES will consider factors including the type of water system, severity of PFAS contamination, water usage, and source capacity to determine how much of the settlement funding to award each recipient, according to a document provided at the Nov. 17 meeting.

The department broke remediation projects across the state into several categories for the purposes of designating settlement funds. 

The first group includes projects that have previously been awarded NHDES funding or are currently underway with funding from NHDES. Systems that have completed grant-funded projects will not be paid out, because they have already been funded, Rousseau said. Projects that received NHDES loans, however, will see their PFAS settlement dollars applied to the outstanding balance of their loan.

In total, this first category encompasses 47 water systems and about $18 million in projected settlement dollars, according to Rousseau. 

The second category includes public water supplies that NHDES considers likely to need remediation action in the future, based on water quality sampling data. This includes 42 community water systems that currently exceed EPA limits for PFAS, which NHDES estimates will receive about $14.7 million for remediation projects. The category also includes 38 community water systems with PFAS levels approaching EPA limits and 112 water systems that are not expected to exceed the limits; these groups together are estimated to receive about $11.2 million. 

The disbursements are not expected to cover the total amount that municipalities have expended on PFAS remediation, Scott said.

Unallocated funds can be applied to broader PFAS initiatives statewide, according to NHDES. The department has also expended more than a million dollars to collect data and prepare the claims, Scott said; when future disbursements are released, he said, the agency can be reimbursed for that expenditure.