PFAS are called “forever chemicals” because they are persistent in the environment and take so long to break down. (Getty Images)
Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, the French manufacturer that contaminated hundreds of private wells in southern New Hampshire with the harmful class of man-made chemicals known as PFAS, ceased production at its Merrimack facility in May.
The company announced last August that it would close the plant but said it would fulfill its existing contracts. Its manufacturing and fabrication operations ceased eight months later in late May, said Michael Wimsatt, the director of the waste management division under the Department of Environmental Services.
The company anticipates submitting a request to the state to terminate its permit to operate by late June, Wimsatt said in a Friday meeting of the Commission on the Environmental and Public Health Impacts of Perfluorinated Chemicals.
The company indicated it would continue to “work with DES on the ongoing environmental investigation and remediation effort, including providing bottled water and permanent alternate water solutions as appropriate within the consent-decree area,” Wimsatt said.
That consent-decree area includes portions of five towns – Bedford, Hudson, Litchfield, Londonderry, and Merrimack – where approximately 1,000 properties tested above the state standards for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, a common type of PFAS, contamination attributed to emissions from Saint-Gobain.
PFAS, called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down naturally, are commonly used in consumer and industrial products. Research has linked the chemicals to a number of health issues, including high cholesterol, weakened immune systems, decreased fertility, increased blood pressure in pregnant women, developmental problems in children, and prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers.
Lawmakers passed a number of measures this session that would put some limits on selling products with intentionally added PFAS, notify property-buyers of the chemicals, and create liability for PFAS-producing facilities, though they await approval from the governor.
Several steps remain before the Merrimack facility is fully shuttered.
“We anticipate the facility will be closed and areas inside the building decommissioned before the end of 2024,” said Suzanne Loranc, a spokesperson for Saint-Gobain North America. “Once decommissioned, Saint-Gobain will continue to work with NHDES to remediate the property, as needed, in accordance with applicable requirements.”
In a November site visit, Wimsatt said, the company told DES it plans to “remove all materials, waste, and processing equipment from the facility.”
The company is in discussions with the town of Merrimack about an emergency generator that will remain on the property for its sprinkler system, he said. It’s unlikely that the generator will require an air permit, “but that is still being determined,” Wimsatt said.
The department is planning a site visit this summer to “ensure that the property doesn’t pose any additional risk to human health and the environment following its closure,” Wimsatt said.
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