Bennington residents applauding Bennington College student researchers at the Bennington select board meeting on Monday, March 17, 2025 . Photo Courtesy of David BondWhen Laura Martin bought her home in south Bennington seven years ago, she was well aware of the problems of PFAS contamination in Ben nington’s private well supply and groundwater.Based on data at the time, Martin said she thought that her new home was out of the range of contamination from a teflon-coated fabrics ChemFab factory that shuttered over 20 years ago. Just in case, Martin, a professor of environmental studies at Williams College, tested the drinking water well supply for PFAS before purchasing the property, finding no detectable sign of PFAS. But a recent round of state tests, done in October 2023, detected PFAS in her home’s well supply, which was particularly troubling for Martin as she was raising her 1-year-old child at the time.“I had to confront the reality of the fact that PFAS are in the soils in Bennington, and are going to be for decades to centuries,” Martin said in an interview. Real-world researchMartin was one of the many residents who attended a presentation Monday to the Bennington Select Board by Bennington College faculty and students and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. The presentation featured new research on PFAS contamination in the Bennington region, conducted through a partnership between the department and Bennington College. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of thousands of synthetic, toxic chemicals found in a variety of ubiquitous household items such as stain-resistant fabrics, non-stick cookware and personal care products. PFOA, perfluorooctanoic acid, is a specific type of PFAS that was used in the fiberglass fabric that the Bennington Chemfab factory produced before it closed. Bennington’s public water supply is sourced from Morgan Springs, which is free of PFAS contamination, said David Bond, associate director of the Center for Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College. But for those with private wells who were exposed to even trace amounts of PFAS, the impacts could be substantial, as PFAS have been linked to a number of cancers and other adverse health concerns, he said.Student researchers at Bennington College analyzed data that the state Department of Environmental Conservation has collected from nearly 700 private wells since 2016. They found that spatial factors such as distance to the factory, slope direction in relation to the factory, wind patterns and rock formations of the region impact contamination levels. “Working with a real-world environmental issue like PFOA goes beyond just textbooks and becomes a public concern,” said Alejandra Vouga, a junior environmental science major and one of the four Bennington College student researchers. “Science is vital not only to understand PFOA but also to do something about it for our community,” he said.The research findings come a year after PFAS was detected in more private wells than initially known in the Bennington region, prompting the state to continue retesting and expanding testing wells in southern Bennington.Tim Schroeder, a professor of geology and lead researcher on the project, looked at the data over time, finding that PFOA levels continue to rise in soil and groundwater in the Bennington region.“What that ended up showing me was that there’s way more wells where the concentration is still going up than wells where the concentration is going down,” Schroeder said in an interview. “The cause of that is most likely that there’s just a lot of PFOA in the soil that is still aggressively leaching to the groundwater, and that is something that’s likely to continue for a very, very long time.”The main takeaway from the research is that PFAS contamination has increased and spread in the Bennington region, mostly downwind, so there should be continued commitment to the study of PFAS in the area, said Bond. Bond said the research findings contradict the 2017 model put forward by the factory’s owner, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, asserting that PFAS levels peaked in 2016 and would continue to decline.Bond said that model served to limit the company’s liability before the state and Saint-Gobain reached a final settlement in 2019 for the company to pay the majority of the $25 million cost to connect households with contaminated private wells to the municipal water supply. “Our research provides an empirical rebuttal of that model,” Bond said. “We are seeing across the board PFOA levels continue to rise across our region and continue to be found well beyond the area of initial concern, and the takeaways from this research are pretty clear — we need robust monitoring of all wells in the Bennington region for PFOA.”Richard Spiese, a hazardous site manager at the Department of Environmental Conservation, with Bennington College students on Monday, March 17. From left to right: Peace Kalomba, Kasha Butterfield, Alejandra Vouga, and August Schnell. Photo courtesy of David BondCommunity solutionsRichard Spiese, a hazardous site manager with the Department of Environmental Conservation, said that Bennington has the most severe PFAS contamination problem in Vermont due to this groundwater spread. The state first recommends that households connect with the public water supply if their private well is contaminated. However, a handful of households in the Bennington region have been unable to connect or opted out of connecting to the municipal water supply, Spiese said. In that case, he said people should use the point of entry treatment (POET) water filtration system or drink clean, non-tap water to minimize exposure to PFAS. As an environmental studies professor at Williams College, Martin focuses on environmental justice. She explained that PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” have been shown to build up in the body over time and to persist in the food chain. However, the community harm and individual health concerns related to chronic exposure to industrial pollutants is hard to prove and quantify. She added that regulation of chemicals in the United States places the burden of proof of harm on individuals and communities, rather than requiring companies to prove that their products are safe and not polluting the environment.“There’s a couple of different barriers that rural communities like those in Vermont face when seeking justice for companies exposing them to pollutants,” Martin said. “One of them is the fact that these pollutants like PFOA cause injuries that take years to decades to manifest.” Martin noted that Vermont’s limit on PFAS contamination in public drinking water — 20 parts per trillion — is currently less strict than federal guidelines. She believes the state should work to align its policies with federal standards.Bryan Redmond, director of the state’s Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division, said the state has been working to come in line with the EPA regulations set by the Biden administration. But a recent EPA lawsuit filing – from new leadership there under the new administration of President Donald Trump, resulted in the court issuing in February a 60-day temporary suspension of the federal guidelines. That has delayed Vermont’s plans to conform to federal maximum contaminant levels by July. The outcome of the litigation will shape the state’s next steps with PFAS regulation, he said. While Bennington faces the worst PFAS contamination, Bond said he thinks that the Bennington region’s PFAS problem often gets overlooked. He hopes that this research conducted by student researchers will help develop scientific understanding of how PFAS spreads in the environment and inspire the local community to take action. “We’re trying to give the community the best science so they can make sense of the issue and they can come together to seek reasonable solutions and protect their groundwater and environmental resources moving forward,” Bond said. Disclosure: Bryan Redmond is married to VTDigger CEO Sky Barsch.Read the story on VTDigger here: Bennington region has the most severe PFAS contamination problem in the state, and new research finds it is getting worse. ...read more read less