The City of Hastings has filed a civil lawsuit against 3M accusing the company of contaminating five of the city's public drinking water wells with perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, a so-called "forever chemical" linked to serious health risks.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 26 in Dakota County District Court, alleges that PFOA released through smokestacks and other air emissions from 3M's Cottage Grove facility was carried by prevailing northwest-to-southeast winds, deposited onto local soils, and leached into the groundwater that feeds Hastings' wells. The city points to 3M's own air modeling as support for that pathway, and notes that Hastings' water tables are shallow with porous soil above the bedrock.
Hastings says it owns and operates public drinking water wells that serve about 23,000 residents and more than 7,500 water customers. The complaint focuses on five of those wells, which the city says are contaminated with PFOA at levels that require treatment under the new federal drinking water standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in April 2024: a maximum contaminant level of 4 parts per trillion. Because that standard is mandatory for public water systems, the city says it must comply for each of the affected wells.
The complaint traces 3M's role back to the 1940s, when the company invented PFOA and became the only U.S. manufacturer of the chemical until 2002. Hastings alleges that 3M produced more than 2.5 million pounds of finished PFOA goods at Cottage Grove between 1976 and 1998 alone, and that for many decades no air emission controls were in place to capture releases from the production cells. The lawsuit cites an internal 3M meeting from 1978 that noted there were no air scrubbers, as well as 3M's own acknowledgment that no emissions controls were in place between 1954 and 1974.
A federal public health agency, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, reported that 3M estimated 1,950 pounds of PFOA compounds were released into the air from vent stacks at Cottage Grove in 1997 alone, with releases occurring between 100 and 200 days per year.
Hastings also points to the chemical signature of the PFOA found in its wells as evidence linking it to 3M. The PFOA in the wells contains both linear and branched isomers, a combination the lawsuit says 3M was the only U.S. company to manufacture. According to the complaint, 3M has recently told Minnesota regulators that PFOA is the "primary driver for water treatment at the Hastings municipal wells."
The lawsuit comes after massive settlements in which 3M has agreed to pay billions of dollars to address PFAS contamination of public drinking water, including a $10.3 billion commitment in 2024 to assist public water suppliers across the United States that have detected, or will detect, PFAS in their water.
In a statement, 3M called the City's decision to pursue litigation "unfortunate" and said it has led the industry in addressing PFAS in the environment, exiting the manufacture of certain long-chain PFAS in 2000 and discontinuing the manufacture of all PFAS globally by the end of 2025. The company added that it provided an $850 million commitment in 2018 to mitigate PFAS in Minnesota, including drinking water in East Metro communities, and that it "remains willing to engage with the City to discuss any legitimate concerns it may have."
The lawsuit also states that 3M has publicly characterized "trace levels" of PFOA found in Hastings' wells as "safe based on decades of research."
PFOA is a human-made chemical that does not occur naturally in the environment or in the human body. Because it is chemically and thermally stable, it does not readily break down and can persist in the environment for a very long time. Exposure has been linked to a range of health effects, including kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, immune system and endocrine disorders, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, birth defects, decreased fertility and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
This story uses information taken from a civil lawsuit.