Laurene Allen

When one of the largest environmental crises in New England’s history was exposed in her own community, Laurene Allen stepped up to protect thousands of families affected by contaminated drinking water. Laurene’s campaign pressured the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant—responsible for leaking toxic forever chemicals into community drinking water sources—to announce its closure in August 2023. The plant’s closure in May 2024 marked an end to more than 20 years of rampant air, soil, and water pollution.

A Toxic Problem

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS, are odorless and tasteless substances that have been dubbed “forever chemicals” because of their toxic longevity. First synthetized in the 1940s to repel oil and grease and protect products from water and heat damage, PFAS take thousands of years to break down in natural environments. 

While not widely known to the public, the chemicals can be found in a huge array of products, including food packaging, cookware, firefighting equipment, personal hygiene items, carpets, and electronics. Because of their ubiquitous use, they are present in animals, human blood and tissue, soil, and seawater throughout the world. A 2022 British Antarctic survey found an alarming increase in PFAS levels in Antarctic snowmelt. 

Despite numerous studies linking excessive PFAS exposure to deadly cancers and developmental problems in children and infants, regulation has been sluggish. In the US, more than 15,000 registered PFAS are listed in the EPA database, but the chemicals have only recently begun to be regulated. Moreover, enforcement of PFAS use is difficult because of the sheer number of chemical variations and the industry’s constant fabrications of new ones.  

PFAS in Practice

Merrimack, New Hampshire, is a town of 29,000 that relies entirely on a mix of private and public wells for its drinking water. In the early 2000s, French corporation Saint-Gobain purchased a fabric coating facility in the town, renaming it the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant, producing protective gear, antennae enclosures, and other fabric coated PFAS items. The products were submerged in a liquid PFAS mixture, then dried in ovens to create resistant coating. The plant’s operations expanded to include additional smokestacks and capacity, ultimately employing approximately 150 workers.  

In 2016, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) tested groundwater wells in Merrimack for the first time. Two of the town’s six public drinking wells, along with dozens of private wells, were found to have PFAS contamination greater than the EPA health advisory limit at that time of 70 parts per trillion (ppt). The results triggered fears that the plant was poisoning Merrimack residents. 

A Fearless Pursuer of Truth

Laurene Allen, 62, moved to Merrimack in the 1980s to raise her family and work as a clinical social worker. She was drawn to the town’s green spaces and healthy living. Prior to becoming involved in the campaign against PFAS, Laurene had no formal science or environmental training. She taught herself as she went and, eventually, became a no-nonsense expert on PFAS, both locally and nationally.  

In March 2016, NHDES convened a community meeting to inform Merrimack residents of the water testing results, downplaying the risks to residents. Laurene left the meeting furious at the authorities’ dismissive attitude toward concerned community members. She also reflected on unexpected health troubles within her own family and the stories of health patterns emerging from community members. That same night, Laurene reviewed the NHDES slide presentation. After enlarging the corner logo on the slides, she realized that the agency had pulled directly from presentations by the plastics corporation 3M—one of the country’s largest manufacturers of PFAS. 

An outraged Laurene was spurred into action. She delved into available PFAS studies and investigated reports of water contamination from the Saint-Gobain plant. She started hosting monthly meetings at her home and cofounded the Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, a volunteer group seeking to address the contamination crisis in Merrimack. Laurene’s rallying cry became “Stop the source and regulate upstream.” Meanwhile, she continued to work full-time as a social worker. 

Representing the group, Laurene contacted scientists, PhD students, and elected officials to learn more about the issue. She spent her evenings reading public health studies to educate herself and others. Her group went door-to-door and conducted a community health survey in Merrimack that uncovered high numbers of health outcomes known to be associated with PFAS exposure. The results were contested by Saint-Gobain and New Hampshire health and environmental authorities; officials responded that there wasn’t a way to connect exposure to health outcomes. Minimizing Laurene’s concerns, they accused her of fearmongering—and branded her a “crazy lady.”

In 2018, NHDES announced a consent decree with Saint-Gobain that would provide bottled water and filtration systems for some families within a small contamination area of approximately 1,000 homes within Merrimack and adjacent towns. However, it quickly became clear that the decree severely underestimated the scale of the contamination. A year later, EPA testing revealed that Saint-Gobain smokestacks were emitting 190 different PFAS, affecting not only Merrimack but also five neighboring towns. Water sampling showed that all six of Merrimack’s public wells were contaminated, along with thousands of private wells. Yet Saint-Gobain was still legally responsible only for the limited area outlined in the 2018 consent decree. 

Realizing that it could not rely on Saint-Gobain or the state to rectify the situation, the Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water (MCFCW) identified group members to run—successfully—for elected office, both as state legislators (three of whom became the “water warriors,” as they worked tirelessly on PFAS policy) and as local water commissioners. In 2020, the new commissioners helped facilitate the filtering of public wells for PFAS and worked with the water district to fund the treatment of all public drinking water. At the state level, Laurene ramped up her visits to Concord, New Hampshire’s capital, testifying in public hearings, pushing for stricter statewide regulations for PFAS in drinking water, and joining the state’s newly formed PFAS commission. Soon, New Hampshire became a leader in state PFAS regulations. 

With Laurene at the helm, MCFCW kept up local pressure, staging protests outside of the facility and bombarding state regulators with complaints and environmental testing results. The group persuaded the state health department to conduct a cancer incidence report, eventually resulting in an acknowledgement of increased kidney cancer cases. In addition, collaborative engagement with Dartmouth College and Boston University signaled that the findings in MCFCW’s 2017 community survey were not an anomaly.  

When the plant’s air permit was up for renewal in 2023, Laurene took every measure possible to contest it—testifying at community hearings, providing public comment, and rallying residents in opposition. Despite the public backlash and ongoing contamination crisis, NHDES renewed the Saint-Gobain air permit for five more years. 

Less than one week after receiving its air permit renewal, in August 2023, Saint-Gobain announced its plan to close the Merrimack plant. After fulfilling its production contracts, the facility ceased all manufacturing activities in May 2024. Laurene’s relentless activism created an untenable reality for Saint-Gobain, effectively running the company out of town after one of the largest environmental contamination episodes in the region’s history. Nevertheless, current plans to address the area’s legacy contamination—which will take thousands of years to dissipate—are unclear due to disagreements between NHDES and Saint-Gobain. Saint-Gobain seeks to demolish the plant without conducting the necessary toxic abatement. 

As a part of the 2018 consent decree, the PFAS contamination in Merrimack was never legally attributed to Saint-Gobain. The company did not acknowledge community pressure as the reason for the closure of its Merrimack plant but, rather, attributed the decision to “restructuring of US production strategy.” 

Laurene’s local campaign grew into a statewide and national network to address PFAS contamination. She helped create the National PFAS Contamination Coalition, raising awareness about Saint-Gobain and the dangers of PFAS on a national level and joining forces with other PFAS impacted communities across the nation. In April 2024, the Biden administration established the very first federal PFAS drinking water standard at 4ppt. In December 2023, a federal court ruled that affected families could file a class action lawsuit against Saint-Gobain for its PFAS contamination, though the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that medical monitoring will not be included. Laurene continues to organize efforts to hold Saint-Gobain accountable for remediation efforts on the facility site and in affected communities, as well as document the full scope of environmental and health impacts from PFAS contamination.