For nearly a decade, residents of Amherst, New Hampshire lived with the consequences of contaminated well water — and this week, a jury finally put a dollar amount on the damage done. A $4 million verdict in a long-running “forever chemicals” lawsuit marks a significant moment for a community that has been fighting for accountability since 2016.
The class-action lawsuit was filed in 2017 by Amherst community members against Textiles Coated International (TCI), a local manufacturer. It followed testing that revealed PFOA — a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance, commonly known as “forever chemicals,” which the World Health Organization has linked to cancer — had leaked into private well water throughout the town. After nine years of litigation, a jury ruled in favor of the plaintiffs this week.
The court found TCI liable on three key grounds. First, the chemicals physically intruded onto private properties — a legal concept known as trespass. Second, the contamination caused substantial interference with how residents could use and enjoy their land, constituting a nuisance. Third, the jury found TCI acted negligently by allowing the release of toxic chemicals without taking corrective action.
A Win With Limits
State Representative Rosemarie Rung, who has been a vocal advocate for holding polluters responsible, welcomed the verdict — but was clear-eyed about what it does and does not accomplish.
“Polluters have to pay; they have to pay for their damages, and I think that’s a big plus,”
Rung said.
“But it doesn’t touch the human and financial costs that the people of New Hampshire, particularly those in Hillsborough County, have suffered at the hands of these corporate polluters.”
Notably absent from this settlement is any compensation for potential health impacts. An earlier phase of the case included a medical monitoring component — which would have tracked residents’ health over time — but that portion was rejected by the court. Only the property damage claims were allowed to proceed.
“There were different phases of this lawsuit that happened. There was a medical monitoring component that was rejected, but the court did have the suit proceed on property damage claims,”
Rung explained.
The Hidden Danger in the Water
Part of what makes PFOA contamination so alarming is how invisible it is. Environmental and public health scientist Mindi Messmer described the challenge residents faced in understanding the risk they were exposed to.
“It’s really bad, and there’s no way to know because you can’t smell them. You can’t see them in the water. So these people unknowingly drank the water from their wells. And the public water systems, and now they’re suffering the effects from it,”
she said.
Messmer expressed hope that future legal and legislative action will extend protections to cover health-related harms — not just property damage — as more communities across the country grapple with PFOA contamination in their water supplies.