Jason Moon

This is Lorene Allen, Merrimack resident since 1985.

I'm not sure what determines who becomes an activist, some drive for fairness or a special brand of persistence.

But whatever that thing is, Lorene has it.

For her, this all started on her couch.

She was watching the local public TV station.

They were broadcasting a meeting about the PFOA contamination.

She remembers how state officials couldn't, or maybe wouldn't, answer most people's questions.

I'm picking up this arrogant, a little mansplaining, a little, they were patronizing some of them, and I know that.

As a female in my generation, I know when somebody's saying, there, there, dear, don't worry about it, the men have this under control.

I recognize that feel, and I immediately say, something's going on here, something's going on here.

Lorene felt unsettled.

One of the things officials said was that these chemicals had been in use since the 1940s.

She was like, what do you mean we don't know anything about them?

So she started spending her free time researching.

By 2016, you could find a lot about PFOA with a Google search.

There were health studies, news stories, lawsuits.

Lorene began breaking a central rule of her sleep routine, no electronics upstairs.

She started bringing her iPad to bed.

So the more you're going down Alice in Wonderland's crazy world at a late time at night when everybody else is sleeping and you're going, oh my freaking word, and you feel like you're the only one who knows this, but somebody has to know it.

Lorene's a therapist, not a scientist.