A water researcher pours a water sample into a smaller glass container for experimentation as part of drinking water and PFAS research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Center For Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response on Feb. 16, 2023, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel, File)
The manufacturing company accused of not warning people that the toxic chemicals in a firefighting foam could seep into drinking water supplies has agreed to a massive settlement with hundreds of water suppliers nationwide.
3M, the company behind Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF), announced Thursday that it will pay $10.3 billion to public water suppliers, or PWS, over the course of 13 years. The city of Stuart, Florida, sued the company in 2018 after learning that the AFFF, which Stuart Fire Rescue had used in training exercises and in fighting fires, contained what the lawsuit describes as “highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals” known collectively as PFAS. Those chemicals leaked into the area’s groundwater, allegedly contaminating community drinking water sources.
PFAS are sometimes called “forever chemicals” because there is reportedly no way to remove them from the body. The lawsuit notes that typical municipal water treatment plants do not filter PFAS due to the toxic chemicals’ “physical and chemical properties.” PFAS are “readily absorbed” through water and live in the body for at least two to nine years, and can be passed to infants through breast milk, the lawsuit says.
3M has previously announced plans to phase PFAS out of its manufacturing by 2025.
In its statement announcing the settlement, 3M said that it has entered into a “broad class resolution to support PFAS remediation” for PWS that detect PFAS “at any level or may do so in the future.”
“This agreement will benefit U.S.-based PWS nationwide that provide drinking water to a vast majority of Americans,” the statement added.
The settlement terms provide funding for PWS across the country for PFAS treatment technologies, PWS that may detect PFAS in the future, and nationwide testing for PFAS. It also brings an end to the litigation over the foam used by firefighters.
According to the federal case docket, the case was set to go to trial on June 5 but was delayed so that the parties could “finalize a global resolution” to the litigation.
The 3M statement says that PFAS can be “safely made and used” and are “critical in the manufacture of many products that are important for modern life, including medical technologies, semiconductors, batteries, phones, automobiles, and airplanes.” The settlement, the company says, is not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
“This agreement is not an admission of liability,” said the statement, adding that if the court doesn’t approve the settlement, or if “certain agreed terms are not fulfilled,” 3M would continue to defend itself in court.
Stuart Fire Chief Vince Felicione told local NBC affiliate WPTV that before they knew the AFFF was toxic, firefighters used it in training exercises.
“We would be silly firefighters and throw it at each other and play in it and say ‘It’s snowing in Florida,”” Felicione told the station. “We did that for years.”
The fire chief said that they thought the foam was as safe as dish soap, according to WPTV, and didn’t require any additional disposal beyond hosing it down into the ground.
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