A Merrimack advocate has been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, a yearly award that goes to a person from each continental region who works to protect nature and the environment.

Laurene Allen is this year’s North American winner of the prize, which has been awarded to 233 people in the past 36 years.

Allen began her work as an advocate in 2016, after state officials announced PFAS chemicals, a group of man-made chemicals connected to a variety of health conditions, used at the Saint-Gobain manufacturing facility were found in her town’s water system.

She spent the following years reading everything she could find on that class of chemicals, meeting with neighbors and government officials and consulting with scientists. She co-founded Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, and later helped create the National PFAS Contamination Coalition.

Those groups have advocated for a variety of changes, including stronger state and federal protections around legal PFAS levels in drinking water and for the clean-up of contaminated sites.

Regulations on PFAS chemicals in drinking water tightened and scrutiny on the company that emitted PFAS into Merrimack’s environment – Saint-Gobain – increased. In 2023, the company announced they were closing their plant.

But despite the closure of the plant, Allen says her work will continue.

“There’s all these chapter endings, but the book never ends,” Allen said. “If only it was done there. We’re left with an environment with contamination everywhere. And we’re also left with a site that is yet to have an appropriate cleanup plan.”

Read more: Saint Gobain is demolishing its facility in Merrimack. But what will happen to lingering contamination?

Allen said it was astonishing to be chosen for the prize. And, she said, she hopes she can share more of what she’s learned about chemical contamination and what she calls a “broken system.”

“I really want people to know that the Merrimack story is a travesty that never should have happened. But we also know, all across the nation and all across the world, there are many, many communities with environmental contamination, discharges, emissions, and being exposed to things that never, ever should have been allowed,” she said.

Allen says she’s hoping the prize might give her more chances to engage with people on PFAS contamination and advocate for impacted communities, and she’s thankful for the opportunity to bring more awareness to her work. But, she said, she felt somewhat amused at being honored.

“You just do what you have to do,” she said. “I didn’t become this person with an agenda. I did it because it really needed to be done.”