Napoli Shkolnik has filed a federal lawsuit under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) on behalf of the Town of Groveland, Massachusetts, targeting five industrial defendants — Waste Management of New Hampshire, Inc., Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation, Haverhill Paperboard Corp., The Newark Group, Inc., and Union Machine Company of Lynn — for their alleged role in contaminating the town's public drinking water with toxic Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) "forever chemicals."   PFAS are man-made chemicals that do not break down easily in the environment or the human body. Exposure has been linked to serious health conditions, including liver and kidney damage, immune and hormonal disruption, pregnancy complications, developmental effects in children, and increased risk of certain cancers.   The lawsuit alleges that the defendants discharged PFAS into the Merrimack River through upstream industrial operations, wastewater effluent, and landfill leachate, which migrated into the three groundwater production wells that serve more than 6,300 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Groveland. Water quality testing conducted in 2024 found Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) in the town's drinking water at 7.3 parts per trillion, nearly double the EPA's maximum contaminant level of 4.0 ppt. Multiple additional PFAS compounds were also detected, including PFOS, PFHxS, PFHpA, and PFBS.   To address the contamination, Groveland has undertaken a major capital project to construct a new granular activated carbon filtration plant specifically designed to remove PFAS from drinking water, a project with costs running into the tens of millions of dollars, to be financed over decades by the town's water users.   The firm's team, led by Partner Pablo J. Nápoles, is focused on recovering those costs for the Town and its residents. In an official statement, Paul said, "The contamination of Groveland's drinking water is not an accident of nature. It is the foreseeable result of decades of industrial discharges into a river that flows directly into this community's wells. CERCLA exists precisely for situations like this: to ensure that those who profit from polluting do not escape the financial consequences of the harm they cause to the community's families and businesses."   Read more about the lawsuit in WHAV News.