[N]ORTH BENNINGTON — Officials explained a $20 million settlement with the multi-national conglomerate Saint Gobain to residents here Wednesday night.
The agreement is partial redress for toxic contamination of hundreds of local wells in the area.
Residents applauded officials as they digested some of the best news they’ve heard since the wide-spread pollution was discovered early last year.
One applause line was for Attorney General TJ Donovan, who said he wanted to make clear that “this is just the first step,” and that all involved from the state have the firm goal of “bringing clean drinking water to everyone in Bennington County.”
Residents also cheered the work of state and local officials over the past 17 months, leading to the first major settlement agreement with Saint-Gobain.
That approbation, however, didn’t represent the sentiment of many who attended the meeting at Bennington College. The settlement now filed at Superior Court covers only about half the affected properties around former ChemFab plants in Bennington and North Bennington. Negotiations and further environmental testing continues in these areas. A class action lawsuit is also underway.
Residents pressed state officials for details of the agreement which calls for Saint-Gobain to pay for a municipal water line extension to about 200 properties west of Route 7A and a rail line.
Ongoing talks between the state and Saint-Gobain are now focused on another 200 properties to the east in a designated contamination zone.
Donovan and state environmental officials said the company has agreed to conduct testing under state supervision in the western sector with the goal of reaching a determination for next steps by early 2018.
The company remains unconvinced that the ChemFab plants were the sole contributor to PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) contamination to the east. Saint-Gobain officials say the toxic chemical could have emanated from the former Bennington landfill on Houghton Lane or from other industrial operations in the area.
Peter Walke, the deputy secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, reiterated Wednesday that the state believes PFOA, used in the manufacture of Teflon-coated fabric at the ChemFab plants, was emitted from factory smokestacks. From there, the chemical worked its way into the groundwater and local wells, state officials say.
Experts and state officials provided a number of details about the settlement agreement and about the pending water line construction.
Mark Youngstrom, of Otter Creek Engineering, which is working on the North Bennington water line project, and Jason Dolmetsch, of MSK Engineering & Design, which is planning the Bennington line extensions, said the work will go out to bid early next month and contracts are expected to be awarded in early fall.
Dolmetsch said the Bennington water line work involves four separate projects involving 10 miles of water line and approximately 155 properties. Saint-Gobain also will pay for connections to each home from the streetline.
In North Bennington, about 55 properties will be connected to the new system with 20,000 feet of water line, Youngstrom said.
The project specifications are expected to include a 200-day timeline for completion of the work.
Richard Spiese, of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said other testing in progress includes work around the former ChemFab site in North Bennington for PFOA contamination, and that is expected to include an assessment of the interior of the closed factory.
Testing around the first ChemFab factory site on Northside Drive in Bennington likely will be tested, he said, if significant PFOA contamination is found in the newer plant in North Bennington.
The plant on Northside Drive operated from 1968 to the late 1970s. The North Bennington plant operated from the 1970s through 2002, when Saint-Gobain moved the operation to New Hampshire and closed the facility. The international firm purchased ChemFab in 2000.
Bennington Town Manager Stuart Hurd asked whether the town might be held liable if the testing shows the former landfill is causing some of the water contamination.
“We need to find out what is happening,” Walke said. “So that is a question for a later day.”
Residents with low PFOA well levels who live near neighbors with higher readings asked about long-term testing and how a higher level in the future would be addressed. The settlement included funding for continued testing, officials said, as well as periodic reassessments.
The state has a 20 parts per trillion advisory level for PFOA in drinking water, the nation’s lowest. Saint-Gobain dropped its challenge to the state standard in Vermont Environmental Court.
Two informational sessions are scheduled for Thursday in Bennington with state officials from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Vermont Department of Public Health offices at 324 Main St. in Bennington, and at an open house from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Bennington Firehouse on River Street.
The settlement also is being reviewed during a 30-day public comment period and comments can be filed online or by mail.
Click here to see the settlement agreement.
