By Shereen Siewert
The city of Wausau last week filed a lawsuit against 3M and two dozen other defendants over allegations that their products contaminated the municipal drinking water supply.
Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg, in an email to Wausau Pilot & Review, called the lawsuit a proactive measure to protect ratepayers and taxpayers.
“The City remains deeply committed to protect its citizens and to hold polluters accountable for contaminating the City’s drinking water,” Rosenberg said. “Additional investigations continue as to other potentially responsible parties liable for contaminating the City’s water system.”
The lawsuit was filed June 22 in federal court, the same day 3M announced a settlement in the ongoing multi-district litigation over contamination by toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The proposed class settlement ranges between $10.5 billion and $12.5 billion and will cover the cost of water treatment to eliminate the chemicals from public water supplies both now and in the future. The settlement is subject to Court approval.
Rosenberg said if the 3M settlement is approved, Wausau will complete further water testing and include the results in an application that will be filed with a court-appointed claims administrator and special master.
“These officials will then determine the level of compensation that is owed to the City to offset the costs of PFAS remediation in our filtration system,” Rosenberg said.
Wausau is being represented by attorneys Andrew W. Croner, Patrick James Lanciotti, Nicholas H. Mindicino and Paul J. Napoli, according to online federal court documents.
Stephen Aquario, of counsel with Napoli Shkolnik, PLLC, spoke in May to Wausau City Council meeting about legal options, after which the council approved moving forward. “Of counsel” refers to an attorney who often has a relationship with a law firm or an organization but is neither an associate nor partner. Aquario told Wausau Pilot & Review in a May phone call he believes PFAS are the greatest threat to the quality of our drinking water in a generation.
DuPont, Chemguard, Dynax, Tyco Fire Products and BASF are among the other defendants named in Wausau’s court action. Of those, only Wausau has a manufacturing facility in the city.
Once named the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, 3M has been operating in Wausau since 1929 and employs about 150 people. The Wausau plant is the company’s oldest operating manufacturing facility in the world.
Thousands of lawsuits
The company has been repeatedly under fire both in Wausau and in other states where they operate. Nationwide, 3M has appeared several times on the Political Economy Research Institute’s list of the top 100 polluters in the nation and has been fined 36 times since 2000 with $852,642,126 in penalties paid, according to the Good Jobs First violation tracker. Good Jobs First is a national policy research center.
3M is ranked 103 in the nation in the most recent Toxic 100 Air Index, which ranks U.S. industrial polluters using the U.S. EPA Toxics Release Inventory. The PERI Indexes include Environmental Justice indicators to assess impacts on low-income people and minorities.
The company is facing more than 4,000 lawsuits in connection with alleged PFAS contamination.
In February 2019, the company settled a contentious action in Minnesota after agreeing to give the state $850 million to resolve the largest environmental lawsuit in the state’s history. The lawsuit, which arose amid allegations of decades-long contamination of groundwater in the Minneapolis area, was settled one day before a trial was set to begin.
Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, known as PFAS, have been used in the production of Teflon, Scotchgard, cardboard packaging and other products since the 1960s. Manufacturers stopped using the chemicals in 2006, but because they don’t deteriorate, these potentially harmful chemicals pose a long-term risk. In addition the U.S. Department of Defense has long mandated use of a particular firefighting foam that contains chemicals in the PFAS family.
Corporations nationwide including 3M Co., Chemguard Inc., National Foam Inc., and Dynax Corp. are facing a multitude of lawsuits related to the toxic chemicals. E.I. du Pont de Nemours was named as a defendant in more than 6,100 PFAS lawsuits since 2005, a Bloomberg Law analysis found. But no company’s degree of legal jeopardy may be rising faster than that of 3M, which operates a plant in Wausau that employs roughly 100 people. 3M was named in an average of more than three PFAS-related lawsuits a day last year, according to the analysis. The company’s most recent annual report dedicated more than 15 pages to its legal exposure from PFAS.
Citizens for a Clean Wausau, the grassroots environmental advocacy group that for years has fought to hold polluters accountable, applauded the settlement in cautious, but optimistic terms.
“While we do not know any more about this settlement than the general public, we believe that major polluters should always be held fully accountable and responsible for the environmental and health damage that they cause….and continue to cause….and that includes 3M Company,” said Terry Kilian, CCW spokesperson. “We are always appreciative to know that major polluters have been called out on these significant issues.”
Hearings have not yet been set in the case, which was filed in South Carolina District Court.
3M Communications Strategist Carolyn LaViolette told Wausau Pilot & Review the next steps are to have the court review and preliminarily approve the proposed class settlement announced last week.
“We anticipate that the court approval will include approval of the process for eligible claimants to make claims under the agreement,” LaViolette said. “As noted in our press release, the agreement provides funding for public water suppliers (PWS) nationwide that have detected PFAS in drinking water, as well as for eligible PWS that may detect PFAS at any level in the future. This builds on our actions that include our announcement to exit all PFAS manufacturing by the end of 2025.”
Attorneys for Wausau did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.
Last year, 3M said it would stop producing the controversial chemicals by the end of 2025.
City of Wausau PFAS lawsuit defendants
| Defendant: 3M Company, The | |
| Defendant: AGC Chemicals Americas Inc | |
| Defendant: Arkema Inc | |
| Defendant: Archroma US Inc | |
| Defendant: BASF Corporation | |
| Defendant: Buckeye Fire Equipment Company | |
| Defendant: Carrier Global Corporation | |
| Defendant: ChemDesign Products Inc | |
| Defendant: Chemguard Inc | |
| Defendant: Chemicals Inc | |
| Defendant: Clariant Corporation | |
| Defendant: Corteva Inc | |
| Defendant: Deepwater Chemicals Inc | |
| Defendant: Dupont De Nemours Inc | |
| Defendant: Dynax Corporation | |
| Defendant: E I DuPont De Nemours Company Inc | |
| Defendant: Nation Ford Chemical Company | |
| Defendant: National Foam Inc | |
| Defendant: Chemours Company, The | |
| Defendant: Chemours Company FC LLC, The | |
| Defendant: Tyco Fire Products LP | |
| Defendant: John Doe Defendants 1-20 | |
| Defendant: Amerex Corporation | |
| Defendant: Carrier Fire & Security Corporation | |
| Defendant: Carrier Fire & Security Americas Corporation |
