[S]en. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, said Monday he is joining a lawsuit against a onetime owner of the former ChemFab Corp. factory over chemical contamination in the area.
He lives in North Bennington within the state-designated PFOA contamination zone around the former factory.
Sears said in a news release that he was “joining the class-action lawsuit brought by residents of North Bennington and Bennington against Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, as a result of the company’s widespread PFOA contamination.”
The state considers the company the responsible party for primarily airborne contamination from the exhaust stacks of the factory on Route 67A. PFOA was used at the plant to coat fiberglass and other fabrics with Teflon.
“It is important for me to point out that I am joining this lawsuit not as a state senator, but as a resident of North Bennington,” Sears said. “I fully support the state’s efforts to hold Saint-Gobain accountable for its PFOA contamination, and I applaud its recent success in achieving a partial settlement, which will require Saint-Gobain to pay to extend public water lines to residents in the zone of contamination who live west of the railroad tracks along Route 7A.”
He added, “As a state senator, I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that all impacted properties have access to clean safe drinking water.”
Sears and the county’s other senator, Democrat Brian Campion, sponsored legislation this year to hold any entity that released PFOA into the atmosphere responsible for extending municipal water lines to affected properties or otherwise supplying a permanent solution to groundwater contamination. Gov. Phil Scott signed the bill in Bennington this spring.
Despite the agreement with the company announced last week, “there are limits to what the state’s partial settlement and any future settlements may accomplish,” Sears said. “The partial settlement does not provide compensation to the hundreds of local residents who have been damaged because their properties, wells, and bodies have been contaminated with PFOA. Even for those who eventually will get town water, the settlement does not compensate them for the fact that now, for the first time, they will have to pay for that water.”
The lawsuit, which is expected to include more than 140 households if approved as a class action, would address those further concerns, Sears said. It is being brought in U.S. District Court.
“The class-action lawsuit will continue until Saint-Gobain provides all affected residents with a permanent source of safe water and fully compensates all affected residents for the damage it has caused, including contamination of the groundwater,” he said. “The lawsuit also seeks to hold Saint-Gobain responsible to pay for a medical-monitoring fund, so that residents who have been exposed to the PFOA can get the medical attention they need,” he said.
“My joining the class-action lawsuit does not, in any way, diminish my commitment to or support for the state’s efforts to hold Saint-Gobain accountable for its PFOA contamination,” Sears added. “On the contrary, I view the class-action lawsuit as a helpful companion to the state’s own efforts. I now look forward to working in both capacities — as a representative of the state and as a private litigant — to do what is right for our state and for my constituents.”
After months of negotiations, the state and the company agreed last week to a partial settlement that calls for the firm to cover $20 million in water line extensions and other costs related to the discovery in early 2016 of widespread PFOA contamination in wells and soil.
The agreement covers about 200 properties, while the parties are continuing talks toward a resolution for roughly an additional 200 households east of Route 7A.
Saint-Gobain is contesting whether there were other sources of PFOA in that area, such as a former town landfill.
The international company purchased ChemFab in 2000 and closed the North Bennington plant in 2002, moving the operation to New Hampshire.
