[N]ORTH BENNINGTON — State officials met with a few dozen residents Thursday as they wrapped up a series of informational sessions concerning an agreement calling for Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics to fund $20 million in water line extensions to about 200 properties affected by PFOA contamination.
Environmental and health officials, attorneys and engineers with firms working on the water line project held open house sessions in Bennington during the day and evening, following a larger meeting and presentation on the agreement Wednesday at Bennington College.
A consent agreement was filed this week at Superior Court in Bennington, following months of negotiations with the company involving contamination of wells and soil over a wide area and involving hundreds of properties around two former ChemFab Corp. factories.
Jen Duggan, general counsel for the Agency of Natural Resources, and Matt Chapman, associate general counsel with the Department of Environmental Conservation, said the flow of residents was slow throughout the day, possibly indicating most are now aware of the general provisions of the settlement.
“Most were asking how this would affect them personally,” Chapman said.
That seemed true of those who closely inspected maps showing the sector of the state-identified contamination zone covered under the partial settlement, as well as a section over which the company and the state are still negotiating. An area in blue on the map is where new water lines will go, while the yellow areas show the focus of the continued talks with Saint-Gobain.
Among those asking about the project, Andy Beckerman afterward expressed cautious optimism about the partial settlement.
He said the rapid and strong response of the state under two different governors since PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) contamination was discovered early last year “was like night and day” compared to the way he and other residents were “totally ignored” during the late 1990s and early 2000s when they complained about chemical fumes and smoke emanating from the ChemFab exhaust stacks and settling over his and other neighborhoods.
Beckerman said the concerns of the state at that time seemed to be focused solely on preserving jobs at the plant — “and then [the company] moved anyway.” Saint-Gobain purchased ChemFab in 2000 and moved the operation in 2002 to New Hampshire.
Details of the partial settlement, which won’t become official until another filing with the court following a 30-day public comment period, ending Aug. 25, include a withdrawal of Saint-Gobain’s challenge of the state’s standard for drinking water of 20 parts per trillion of PFOA. That challenge in Vermont Environmental Court will be dropped and the testing and evaluation of what is needed for remediation in the contamination zone will be based on that standard — the lowest in the nation.
Commenting in a release on that aspect of the agreement, Shaina Kasper, Vermont director of the Toxics Action Center, said, “The fact that the state of Vermont was sued because they were trying to protect their residents from getting sick from contaminated drinking water just shows how broken our chemical regulatory system is.”
Kasper said resolution of the Saint-Gobain suit could have a major impact on efforts to establish strong drinking water standards around the country.
The consent agreement does not cover approximately the same number of properties in the eastern section of the contamination zone, east of Route 7A and the rail line. Cost figures to run water lines to all those properties are expected by state officials to be similar to the $20 million cost of connecting the homes in the western section.
Saint-Gobain also has agreed to an expedited schedule for company-funded testing under state supervision to resolve disagreements over the source or sources of PFOA contamination in the eastern section.
The company remains unconvinced that the ChemFab plants were the sole contributor to PFOA contamination in that area, questioning whether some has emanated from the former Bennington landfill on Houghton Lane and/or from other local industrial operations. The state believes the contamination came from ChemFab exhaust stacks and worked into soils and groundwater.
The agreement calls the company to complete the site investigation work by Oct. 30 and file a draft report by Dec. 15 on how to mitigate impacts of the contamination. A final report is due by Feb. 15.
State officials said they hope to then conclude a similar action plan and consent agreement with Saint-Gobain to fund water line extensions and other mitigation in the eastern section next year. If no agreement can be reached, they said, the state would take the company to court to seek reimbursement for costs associated with the contamination.
In addition, the company agreed to reimburse the state more than $1.8 million for the cost of responding to the contamination threat after it was discovered, as well as future costs associated with oversight of implementation of the corrective action plan for the western section of the zone.
Saint-Gobain also must complete a supplemental site investigation of the interior of the former ChemFab plant in North Bennington and provide a report to the Agency of Natural Resources. Tests have been conducted of soils and water on the property outside the building.
At the first ChemFab plant site on Northside Drive, the company has agreed to fund similar testing, although state officials said that investigation might be narrower in scope if no significant PFOA pollution is found at the newer North Bennington site.
ChemFab was formed and opened on Northside Drive in 1968 and moved to a newly built plant in North Bennington in the late 1970s. It operated there through 2002, growing rapidly and expanding in the U.S. and other countries before being purchased by Saint-Gobain in 2000. The firm specialized in coating fiberglass and other fabrics through a high-temperature drying process with Teflon, which contained PFOA.
After the reports on testing at the plants are received from Saint-Gobain, the ANR will approve a corrective action plan for addressing environmental issues and set a schedule for the work.
The settlement agreement for the western section also includes funding for long-term monitoring of wells in the zone, with provisions for remedies if wells now testing below the state’s 20 parts per trillion of PFOA test higher in the future, or if other changes impact individual properties of the area.
Engineers designing the expansions of the North Bennington and Bennington water systems plan to put the projects out to bid in early August and to award bids in the fall, when construction is expected to begin. The work will included connections from the streetline to homes.
The projects are expected to take about 200 days for the approved water line extensions, and completion of water system expansion in the eastern sector — if agreed upon next year — would make the overall project a multi-year undertaking, officials said.
The settlement agreement can be viewed here.
