Massachusetts Communities Are Suing Industrial Polluters Over PFAS in Their Drinking Water

Por Pablo Nápoles, partner at Napoli Shkolnik and nationally recognized environmental attorney

Across Massachusetts, communities like Pepperell, Groveland, and others have filed federal lawsuits alleging that decades of local industrial activity contaminated their drinking water with PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” These communities are now suing under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or the federal Superfund law, to make those companies pay for the cleanup, rather than leaving local families and businesses on the hook for the bill.

A Pattern Across Communities

The cases share a common thread. Wells drawing from rivers and aquifers near former paper mills, chemical processors, and industrial manufacturers are showing PFAS levels that exceed EPA limits. For example, Groveland’s 2024 testing found PFOA, a type of PFAS, at 7.3 parts per trillion, nearly double the EPA’s 4 ppt limit. In Pepperell, one well has been offline since 2021 due to PFAS contamination.

Those responsible are not just small companies; they are industry giants. Defendants across the cases include Honeywell, Georgia-Pacific, Saint-Gobain, and Waste Management, among others.

Cleaning up PFAS contamination requires specially designed granular activated carbon filtration, which costs tens of millions of dollars per community. Without litigation, those costs fall entirely on local taxpayers.

What Families and Communities Should Know

PFAS exposure has been linked to cancer, liver and kidney damage, immune disruption, and developmental complications in children. PFAS are colorless, odorless, and tasteless, so people cannot detect them in drinking water without specialized laboratory testing. Communities near industrial sites should watch for:

• PFAS test results at or approaching EPA limits in municipal water reports
• Wells located near former manufacturing, paper milling, or chemical processing sites
• State environmental notices about contamination in local watersheds

CERCLA has strict timelines, and waiting can limit a community’s ability to recover costs already incurred. The EPA’s 2024 designation of PFOA and PFOS as CERCLA hazardous substances strengthened the legal footing for exactly these cases.

Napoli Shkolnik Is Here to Help

Napoli Shkolnik represents municipalities and water districts in PFAS contamination litigation. And we’re not done. Our firm is planning to file additional cases on behalf of Massachusetts communities this month and next.

If your community is dealing with PFAS contamination in its water supply and wants to understand its legal options, póngase en contacto con nosotros hoy.