Jason Moon

With a steady drip, the tub eventually fills up.

That's part of how PFOA and the family of PFAS chemicals like it got their nickname.

Forever chemicals.

They stick around in human bodies for a really long time.

So it matters not just how much PFOA is in your water, but how long you've been drinking it.

And before 2016, the EPA's guidelines were only for short-term exposure, not for water you'd drink over the course of a lifetime.

For people not on the public water system in Merrimack, things were even more confusing.

When the state started testing private wells within a mile of the St.

Gobain plant, some of those levels were coming in much higher than the town, at 190, 360, 820 parts per trillion.

St.

Gobain agreed to pay for bottled water or other solutions for houses that tested over the guidelines the EPA was using.

As for Wendy, her well tested at 40 parts per trillion.

So well under the EPA's guidance of 70, but double Vermont's limit of 20.

Wendy told her kids not to use the taps.

They started drinking bottled water and installed two kinds of filtration systems.

Altogether, she was out more than $5,000.

Water contamination isn't the kind of fiasco that happens all at once.

Months went by.

The state and Saint-Gobain were negotiating.

Many families were living on bottled water.