Residents and businesses in Merrimack are paying for bottled water and private filtration systems because our public water supply contains PFAS chemicals that we do not want to ingest, inhale or have absorbed through our skin. Merrimack Citizens have had past and have ongoing PFAS exposure as a NH DES and EPA designated contamination area. PFAS chemicals are recognized as carcinogens and federal toxicity reports show multiple threats to human health. PFAS chemicals are bioaccumulative thus cannot decrease in your blood serum and organs until exposure ends. Due to the actions of polluters, our public water supply is exposing us to levels that are above the federal agency ATSDR’s recommended risk level . Sadly, PFAS as a class are referred to as “forever chemicals” because they do not breakdown in the environment and will persist in exposing our community to harm for decades. Filtering our public water wells is one measure that can be taken to protect public health and is more cost effective than the current expenses endured by our residents. We learned of this contamination almost 3 years ago and it is time to take direct action as we can see from recent NH DES data reports the problem is compounding,