EMILY KWONG, HOST:
A few years ago, Ben Peirce came home to find a bunch of bottled water left at his doorstep for his safety because it turned out the tap water in his town was contaminated with so-called forever chemicals. Used for decades to waterproof and stainproof products, forever chemicals take a long time to break down, meaning they stick around in nature and in our bodies. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that nearly half of the nation's tap water contains one or more of these forever chemicals. And we're going to take you to one of the many cities fighting back against the pollution - Merrimack, New Hampshire. That's the focus of a new podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio called Safe to Drink, hosted by Mara Hoplamazian. They join me now. Hi.
MARA HOPLAMAZIAN, BYLINE: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
KWONG: Ten years since Merrimack discovered that it had forever chemicals in the water. How's the water now?
HOPLAMAZIAN: So Merrimack has installed the treatment system. Their public water is filtered and safe to drink. And the company that New Hampshire says is responsible for this contamination, Saint-Gobain, has paid for people who use private wells, which are really common in New Hampshire, to install filters or connect to public water systems, but those projects aren't finished. So there are still households in the area that are still waiting for permanent solutions.
KWONG: A decade later?
HOPLAMAZIAN: Yes.
KWONG: So why did you decide to make this podcast looking back at this history?
HOPLAMAZIAN: So a couple years ago, Saint-Gobain closed down its plant in Merrimack, and as that happened, I started to think, OK, this company's leaving. This contamination, they're forever chemicals. You know, they're here to stay. And I had all these questions, like, how are regulators dealing with this? What does this mean for people's health? And answering those took me on a journey way outside of New Hampshire and ended up becoming this podcast.
KWONG: It's a four-part podcast. It's riveting. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit of the story about how the people in town found out that their water was contaminated.
HOPLAMAZIAN: Yeah, so, actually, in Merrimack, you know, it's possible people still wouldn't know that their water was contaminated if it weren't for this guy named Michael Hickey. He's from Hoosick Falls. It's a small town in upstate New York. His dad worked at a Saint-Gobain plant there most of his life, and shortly after he retired, he died of kidney cancer. And Michael was really sort of sad and confused, sort of, like, how could this have happened? And he started noticing, also, a lot of other people getting really sick in Hoosick Falls.
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MICHAEL HICKEY: And then I started thinking, why are all these people always sick? You know, what - 'cause in a smaller community like this, you know what the neighbor has for illnesses. You know what the person down the road has. You know, like - and it seemed like we had a lot of these illnesses, and I'm like, wow, what ties everybody together? Water, right? Water does.
KWONG: Yeah, forever chemicals, they're linked to different kinds of cancer, damage to the liver and immune system. So what does Michael end up doing?
HOPLAMAZIAN: So he ends up getting the town's water tested himself. And, you know, sure enough, he finds out there are high levels of PFOA, which is one of the older forever chemicals. And his testing, it sets off this chain reaction that leads to the United States Environmental Protection Agency stepping in, telling the town not to drink the water, and eventually to Vermont and New Hampshire learning that the same thing that happened to the water in Hoosick Falls has happened near their Saint-Gobain plants.
And I'll just note, we reached out to Saint-Gobain to ask them questions about all of this, and the company said they're committed to remediation efforts. There are other sources of forever chemical contamination, and they've also said the health and safety of employees is core to the company's culture. But, you know, in my reporting, I found that, like in New Hampshire, lots of communities all across the U.S. were dealing with forever chemicals, but there was no federal drinking water standard until 2024. So it was sort of like there was no playbook for how to respond every time it was discovered.
KWONG: Yeah. And meanwhile, the forever chemicals that have been found in water are also in our bodies. Nearly all Americans have these chemicals in their blood, according to the CDC, in some amount. So given how prevalent they are, what do we know about how they may be impacting people's health today?
HOPLAMAZIAN: Yeah. So for one thing, scientists can now say with confidence that PFOA, which is one of the older forever chemicals, is carcinogenic. There's this massive epidemiological study published around 2012 that showed links to six different illnesses, including high cholesterol and ulcerative colitis. And the body of evidence for different health effects is growing, but these are super weird chemicals, and in total, there are more than 15,000 of them.
KWONG: Wow.
HOPLAMAZIAN: So there's still a lot of uncertainty, you know, about what people who've been exposed to them could be facing.
KWONG: How are people in Merrimack right now living with the uncertainty about their water, since the problem isn't fully solved?
HOPLAMAZIAN: Yeah, so I spent some time with a family who has a contaminated well. They can't use their taps, and through an agreement between New Hampshire state regulators and Saint-Gobain, they've been getting bottled water deliveries for years now. Their two kids have grown up with this.
KWONG: Wow.
HOPLAMAZIAN: The mom, Jen Peirce, told me she sometimes gets really worried, but then, you know, she has to go to work and take the kids to sports practice.
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JEN PEIRCE: You have to just move forward and not think about those things all the time, but that is my biggest worry that they, or even us, will be affected 10, 15 years down the road. And what is justice for that? I don't know.
HOPLAMAZIAN: The Peirces told me the hardest part of this whole thing is the emotional management, you know, trying to figure out how freaked out they should be. And that's sort of, I think, what a lot of us around the country are also facing.
KWONG: Mara, you mentioned earlier how in 2024, the government set the first legally enforceable drinking water standards for six of these chemicals, including PFOA. What has changed since that law was put in place? Like, what does it mean?
HOPLAMAZIAN: So, you know, public water systems across the U.S. will need to start testing for these chemicals and treating their water to remove them. But the timeline for that is unclear right now.
KWONG: Yeah, the EPA announced it was going to, like, delay the timeline for water utilities to comply.
HOPLAMAZIAN: Yes, and the combination of chemicals that will need to be tested and treated for is possibly changing as well.
KWONG: So what does this mean for a state like New Hampshire?
HOPLAMAZIAN: So a few months ago, you know, a former EPA regulator told me she's most hopeful for solutions to this problem coming from states, and that kind of state action has happened in New Hampshire. It was one of the first states to implement its own drinking water limits, and that was, in part, due to a ton of advocacy and the citizen scientists who learned about these chemicals and fought for answers. And I think that's really what this story is all about.
KWONG: New Hampshire Public Radio's Mara Hoplamazian, the host of a new podcast, Safe to Drink. You can listen to the show anywhere you get NPR Network podcasts. Thank you for joining us, Mara.
HOPLAMAZIAN: Thank you so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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