One of those companies, 3M, says it acted ‘responsibly’ and will defend its environmental record
By Jon Hurdle, NJ Spotlight
Four New Jersey towns and an investor-owned water supplier are suing 3M, DuPont, and other makers of PFAS — so-called forever chemicals — saying the companies knew their products would contaminate drinking water but continued to sell them, and must now pay for their cleanup.
Camden and Point Pleasant are suing the companies in federal court in South Carolina — where some cases are consolidated — for the manufacture and sale of the chemicals used in firefighting foam. This product has contaminated groundwater in many places around the country, especially on and near military bases.
Meanwhile, Hopatcong, Pequannock, and the Middlesex Water Company are suing in federal court in New Jersey, seeking compensation for the costs of removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from public water supplies to comply with health standards recently set by New Jersey.
“3M marketed and sold PFAS in New Jersey with the knowledge that PFAS would be released into the environment and without warning users or others of the risks of PFAS to the environment and to human health,” Middlesex said in an amended suit, filed in May.
Getting chemicals out of drinking water
The lawsuits are the latest in a series of legal, regulatory, and legislative efforts to reduce the chemicals in drinking water sources, where they are believed to threaten public health or to seek compensation from those held responsible for the contamination.
In 2019, Ridgewood Water, a publicly owned water utility in Bergen County, sued DuPont, saying the chemical giant was responsible for the PFAS in public wells that forced it to install filtration equipment to meet the new state standards. New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection last year sued Solvay, a South Jersey chemical manufacturer, accusing it of contaminating groundwater with perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), a type of PFAS.
And the DEP has in the last several years set some of the nation’s strictest health standards for the presence of three kinds of PFAS in drinking water, responding to gathering evidence that the chemicals are linked to some cancers, immune-system problems, high cholesterol, and other illnesses.
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