Vermont Launches Statewide PFAS Contamination Study
Four colleges and state partners will track forever chemicals in Vermont water and soil, with health findings still years from published results.
Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Chemistry
Live Poll
Do you trust federal research funding to keep communities safe from chemical contamination?
Middlebury College received a $2.1 million National Science Foundation grant for research into PFAS contamination in Vermont, announced Sept. 29. The grant is part of a $7.9 million NSF fund shared by four Vermont colleges and their partners; this development is funded research and has not produced published findings yet.
Why it matters
PFAS are man-made chemicals resistant to water, grease and oil, and their carbon-fluorine bonds do not easily degrade in soil, water and air. The project examines potential groundwater and soil contamination and the health risks it could pose to Vermont communities, a question that has been building since local concerns surfaced in 2016 and Middlebury began well investigations near Rutland airport in 2019.
The grant is a federal research award, not a measured finding, so no contamination levels have been reported. The funding represents a fraction of NSF's 2025 award pool, where 8,377 projects were funded from more than 43,532 applications, and the Vermont portion is split across four institutions. Whether the sampling will confirm contamination in groundwater and soil remains unknown.
The players
National Science Foundation
The federal agency that funds basic research across U.S. science and engineering, supporting roughly 350,000 researchers annually at about 1,900 institutions.
Middlebury College
A Vermont liberal arts college whose researchers lead the PFAS Environmental Research Network and its $2.1 million NSF grant.
Bennington College
A Vermont college receiving $4.8 million of the network's NSF funding, and an institution contacted by a resident about PFAS in drinking water in 2016.
The details
Researchers will conduct aquatic sampling, explore health impacts, and build a statewide database and statistical models to track PFAS across Vermont. Chemical analysis will be performed at laboratories both inside and outside Vermont, with five Middlebury professors and three student researchers working on the project. Professors will meet every two weeks and institution heads will meet monthly to coordinate the four-college network, which includes state agencies, research institutions and community partners.
Timeline
2016: A local resident contacted Bennington College about perfluorooctanoic acid in drinking water.
2019: Middlebury began investigating wells near Rutland airport after PFAS was discovered there.
2025: The NSF funded 8,377 projects from 43,532 applications.
Sept. 29, 2026: Middlebury announced the $2.1 million NSF grant.
The Tech Race
The NSF-funded PFAS network positions Vermont's colleges within a broader national effort to map and measure forever chemicals in water and soil. Its statewide database and statistical models would add a regional monitoring layer alongside federal and state testing programs.
Vermonters on private wells or in communities near former airport sites may eventually benefit from a statewide PFAS database and health data, though no timeline for results has been announced. Until the sampling is complete, the research does not change drinking water guidance or testing requirements for residents.
The takeaway
Watch for the first aquatic sampling results and the statewide PFAS database from the four-college network, which will show whether contamination in Vermont groundwater and soil is widespread. The biweekly professor meetings and monthly institutional meetings are the coordination milestones to track.
Further reading
For more on the chemistry behind these persistent compounds, see Chemistry coverage across the site.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The Middlebury Campus.
Live Poll
Do you trust federal research funding to keep communities safe from chemical contamination?
