Jason Moon

Merrimack was trying to get the chemical out of its public water.

As the town tried to figure out their treatment options, they shut down the public wells testing highest for PFOA and kept others testing at lower levels online.

For everyone on the public system, the word was, it was still safe to drink.

It seemed like people started settling into loose camps.

There were some who trusted the official word, said, hey, I've been drinking the water, I'm fine.

The other camp, Lorene, Wendy, and their friends, said, no, we need to do something.

They started showing up to local government meetings, trying to get people to take their concerns seriously.

At one town council meeting, several councillors told Lorene's group they shouldn't say the town had contaminated water.

Old guy, don't say the word contamination.

Another council member basically said this isn't an Erin Brockovich situation.

Town councilors were worried about jumping to conclusions.

They were worried about the town getting a reputation.

From where I sit, here in the future, there's something eerie about looking back at this moment, this fight about the contamination, even the word contamination in 2017.

Eerie because all of this had already happened before.

This unprecedented emerging contamination, it had already played out in another community 100 miles away.

like two towns putting on the same theater production.

The set looked a little different.

The cast was local.

But the script, the themes, the choreography, they were mostly the same.

The plays are so similar that in this other town, the person playing the role of Laureen, a local resident turned activist, is also named Laureen.