The bill is beginning to come due for several manufacturing and chemical companies, including many with Delaware ties, for years of contamination to soil and water supplies.
On June 22, the manufacturing giant 3M announced it reached a sweeping $10.3 billion settlement over claims it contaminated water supplies in cities and towns across the country. Two weeks earlier, DuPont and spinoff companies Chemours and Corteva reached a $1.19 billion deal to resolve claims they polluted public drinking water systems.
Hundreds of municipalities across the country have sued companies like 3M and Chemours in recent years, seeking damages to deal with the long-range health impacts of contamination, chemical clean up and monitoring of polluted areas.
The settlements reached last month deal with contamination from “forever chemicals,” long-lasting compounds used in everything from firefighting foam to nonstick coatings and adhesives. Known as PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances), the chemicals have been linked to liver damage, weakened immune systems and cancer.
What are PFAS? Why are they dangerous?
First manufactured in the 1940s, the class of compounds known collectively as PFAS includes more than 4,000 types of chemicals, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
They make products resistant to heat, water, oil and corrosion. Their use was mostly phased out in the U.S. in the mid-2000s, but some still remain.
In addition to their potential toxicity, the defining characteristic of PFAS is their longevity in the environment and in the body. Regulators are concerned about their ability to bioaccumulate, essentially increasing their presence in the environment as they work through the food chain over time.
“Human studies have found associations between [PFAS] exposure and several types of health effects including the liver, the immune system, the cardiovascular system, human development (e.g., decreased birth weight), and cancer,” according to the EPA.
How 3M ties to Delaware
3M agreed to pay up to $10.3 billion over 13 years for public water suppliers to test for and clean up PFAS. The settlement is intended to cover remediation to water suppliers that have detected PFAS at any level or may do so in the future.
3M is known to consumers as the company behind Post-it notes, Command strips and Scotch tape, but it has a much deeper catalog of worker safety, healthcare and industrial products including personal protective equipment, electrical insulating materials and paint protection films.
The company’s origins tie in to DuPont’s early use of PFAS.
In 1947, 3M, then the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, began producing a type of PFAS called PFOA. Four years later, DuPont started purchasing PFOA from the Minnesota company to use in the manufacturing of Teflon.
Once 3M gave in to pressure from the EPA to stop making PFOA, DuPont began manufacturing the compound on its own.
DuPont, Chemours and Corteva settle suits for $1.19 billion
By the 1990s, Teflon was a billion-dollar-a-year product for DuPont and DuPont was a backbone of Delaware’s economy.
Fast forward 30 years and DuPont is now a fraction of its former size and a player in 5G telecommunications, electric vehicles and clean energy. And Teflon is a brand of Chemours, the former chemicals division of DuPont spun off in 2015.
Together, they have spent billions settling lawsuits across the country. At the start of June, the companies, along with agricultural spinoff Corteva, reached their greatest settlement yet, agreeing to pay $1.19 billion to a fund to help remove PFAS from public drinking water systems.
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The companies did not comment beyond the announcement.
Legal discovery tied to PFAS cases revealed corporate records from 3M and DuPont that showed that both companies developed an understanding of the health and environmental hazards PFAS posed by 1970.
Chemours sued DuPont in 2019, saying the company deliberately mispresented the cost of environmental liabilities Chemours would face related to PFAS. The case was dismissed the following year.
The companies reached an agreement in January 2021 that established a cost-sharing arrangement and escrow account for future PFAS liabilities. Chemours will contribute about $592 million, DuPont will contribute about $400 million and Corteva will post the remaining $193 million.
DuPont, Chemours and Corteva previously paid Delaware $50 million for environmental damage they imposed
In 2021, DuPont, Chemours and Corteva reached a settlement with the Delaware Department of Justice that required the companies to pay $50 million to Delaware. The settlement sought to hold the companies responsible for decades of environmental damage in Delaware caused by their production of PFAS.
Former Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Collin O’Mara at the time called it “the most significant environmental legal settlement in Delaware history.”
“I think it’s important to keep the health of our citizens paramount in our state,” Attorney General Kathy Jennings told Delaware Online/The News Journal at the time. “It really doesn’t matter who you are, what your corporate name is or what you’ve done in the state of Delaware. It’s not OK to either break the law or do damage to our citizens.”
The settlement required the companies to fund up to an additional $25 million if they went on to settle claims with other states for more than $50 million within eight years of July 2021. Because the recent settlement is with water suppliers, not states, the provision hasn’t been triggered.
DuPont and Corteva each contributed $12.5 million and Chemours contributed $25 million. The money is to be used for PFAS detection and abatement and environmental justice and equity grants to fund community health clinics and initiatives in communities known to be impacted by PFAS contamination.
The settlement was the result of a more than two-year investigation coordinated by the Department of Justice that consisted of environmental sampling, forensic analysis and a review of corporate records. It preempted a “massive lawsuit” the department planned to filed against DuPont, Chemours and Corteva.
Are other companies facing PFAS-related claims?
Companies headquartered in and around Delaware are wrapped up in similar litigation, with challenges coming from around the country.
In nearby Elkton, Maryland, community members are filing a class action lawsuit against W.L. Gore & Associates alleging its Cherry Hill plant has caused an environmental and public health crisis. The community members say Gore polluted the surface water and soil with PFAS while releasing plumes of the chemicals in the air.
“Gore denies the allegations made in the lawsuit, which omits key facts about Gore’s proactive steps to handle PTFE responsibly and to minimize potential exposures and emissions,” Gore spokesperson Deena O’Brien wrote in a statement. “We will address the allegations in the complaint at the appropriate time.”
Last month, New Jersey reached a $393 million settlement with chemical maker Solvay Specialty Polymers over PFAS contamination in Gloucester and Camden counties. The state attorney general said it’s the largest settlement in state history regarding contamination from a single location.
Other nearby companies facing litigation include Exton, Pennsylvania’s AGC Chemicals, Buckeye Fire Equipment Company in Piscataway, New Jersey and National Foam Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Are PFAS regulated?
The short answer: not yet.
For years, PFAS have been considered an “emerging contaminant” by federal environmental and public health agencies.
In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed limiting the amount of PFAS in drinking water to the lowest level that tests can detect. It was the first time the EPA has proposed regulating the toxic compounds, heeding years of calls from environmental and public health advocates to set enforceable limits.
A final rule is expected after a public comment period by the end of the year.
The EPA in March said it wanted to set a strict limit of 4 parts per trillion for the two most common types of PFAS, PFOA and PFOS. It would be a tighter limit than what’s in place in any state currently. In addition, the EPA wants to regulate the combined amount of four other types of PFAS.
DNREC began the process of setting PFAS limits in Delaware in 2016. They had tentatively set the limit at 17 parts per trillion, but have since halted their efforts following the announcement of the EPA’s proposed regulations.
DuPont phased out its use of PFOA more than a decade ago. 3M has promised to stop all PFAS production by 2025.
Do the settlements make communities whole?
Erik Olson, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the New York Times the DuPont settlement would “take a bite out of the problem” but not fully solve it.
A 2022 study calculated the costs of treating diseases attributable to PFAS exposure to be more than $62 billion. When the EPA proposed its standards for PFAS contamination, it said the limits would result in an economic benefit of more than $1 billion considering the effects of improved cardiovascular health and a reduction of low birth-weight births throughout the country.
USA TODAY contributed reporting.
Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @holveck_brandon. Contact Molly McVety at mmcvety@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @mollymcvety.
