State of New Hampshire Announces Historic Lawsuit, Actions to Protect Clean Drinking Water in New Hampshire

Concord, NH - Today, Governor Chris Sununu, Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, and DES Commissioner Bob Scott announced historic action to protect New Hampshire's natural resources by filing two lawsuits against companies for the manufacturing and dissemination of PFAS in New Hampshire. The lawsuits seek damages for contamination of the State's natural resources with four different PFAS substances: PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, and PFHxS. Through these lawsuits, the State will seek to recover all costs to investigate, clean up, restore, treat, monitor, and otherwise respond to contamination of the State's groundwater, surface water, fish, wildlife, marine resources, and other natural resources.

"New Hampshire is leading the nation in holding these polluting companies accountable," said Governor Chris Sununu. "We are confident that this lawsuit will be a success, and that it will provide proper assistance to the State and our communities. And as we move forward with this lawsuit, we will continue to investigate strengthening our state's drinking water standards – which have yet to be finalized – which will follow science and put the health and wellbeing of our citizens first. In the coming weeks, I anticipate the Department of Environmental Services will submit strengthened proposed standards before JLCAR so that every single New Hampshire citizen can expect safe drinking water."

"The action we are taking today is intended to ensure that those responsible for the PFAS contamination to our state's drinking water supplies and other natural resources are held accountable," said Attorney General MacDonald. "As alleged in the lawsuits we are filing today, the defendants possessed unique knowledge of the dangers of PFAS chemicals but continued to make and sell them without warning the public of their health risks. We are committed to taking all legal action necessary to ensure that those responsible account for the damage to the State and its resources caused by PFAS."

"PFAS contamination of our state's natural resources represents one of the greatest and far-reaching environmental challenges facing the granite state. Holding the manufacturers of these chemicals responsible will help us to address this daunting problem" said Bob Scott, Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services.

An overview of the lawsuit is as follows:

• The State of New Hampshire has filed two lawsuits in Superior Court against 3M, DuPont, the Chemours Company as well as Chemguard Inc., Tyco Fire Products LP, Buckeye Fire Equipment Company, Kidde-Fenwal Inc., and National Foam Inc.
• 3M, DuPont, and the Chemours Company are the only three companies named in both lawsuits.
• The lawsuits allege that despite possessing the unique knowledge of the dangers of these chemicals, these companies continued to make and sell them without warning the public of their health risks.
• The objective of these lawsuits is to hold these defendants accountable for their conduct and the costs of correcting the harm they have caused. Copies of the lawsuits are located on the Judical Branch web site.