Federal funding in jeopardy for Stillwater PFAS clean up

NINA MOINI: Well, the city of Stillwater is planning to build a temporary facility to remove PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, from one of its wells. That well and one other were shut off two years ago after showing unsafe levels of the chemicals, according to state health guidelines.

But Stillwater is not alone in facing problems with PFAS in drinking water. And while it has secured some funding to do what it wants to do, the city was one of many around the country that recently missed out on some funding from Congress. In last month's bill to keep the government running, Congress did not fund special infrastructure projects or earmarks. Stillwater Mayor Ted Kozlowski joins me now to talk about the next steps for the City of Stillwater. Thank you so much for being with us, Mayor.

TED KOZLOWSKI: Hey, thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: So would you, for starters, I mentioned that a lot of communities have been dealing with this. But what makes the situation in Stillwater kind of unique to what some of the other cities in the surrounding area are dealing with?

TED KOZLOWSKI: I mean, there's a few things. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I mean, the East Metro is the home of 3M. And so when they discovered that illegal disposal of PFAS back in the early 2000s, it was something the East Metro has been pretty well aware of for a long time, but it never impacted Stillwater. We were, I guess, lucky to not have found any contamination in our water.

So we've recently discovered, through work with the Minnesota Department of Health, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, that they did discover traces of PFAS in a couple of our wells. I think some of the things that are challenging with Stillwater is that, one, we're a small city. We're about 20,000 residents.

So we don't have any scientists on staff, right? We've got public works cops and firefighters for the most part. And so we have to look to the state and the Fed for a lot of guidance and help with these types of issues. We're also the birthplace of Minnesota. We're an old city.

We have a decentralized water system. So every neighborhood has its own well, where other communities have wells that all drive water to a central treatment facility, where then gets dispersed out to the rest of the community. We don't really have that because we're just an older city and the wells have been set up over time. And so trying to treat all of the water in Stillwater is a pretty difficult task, just because we have eight different wells across the city that all serve different parts of our community.

NINA MOINI: And has there been much of an impact from having some of the wells shut down?

TED KOZLOWSKI: Not yet. It's really close. More or less, we have enough water, certainly in the winter months when people aren't watering their lawns, to supply the need, to meet the demand that we have in Stillwater. The issue that we're facing is that the levels that give us the guidance on when to shut something down, that keeps changing.

And so if we use the guidance from a few years ago, which again, I'm not a scientist, but three years ago the numbers were X, and all of our wells were within that threshold and everything was fine, according to the Department of Health and the EPA. Now they've reduced that number, and I think smartly so to protect our residents and protect all of us, to a much lower level, which is great, but this is what's impacting our wells.

If that guidance changes at all, we've got three wells that have a detectable level of PFAS in them that are close to or above the current regulations. And so if that third well were to somehow get over the limit, if the PFAS that's in the water supply migrates, then we could be in real trouble. If we had to shut down three of our wells or four of our wells, it could be kind of dire for the city.

NINA MOINI: OK, so how are you monitoring that?

TED KOZLOWSKI: We have to rely on the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota Department of Health. The PCA is the body that measures everything and tests everything. And then the Minnesota Department of Health is what gives us our local guidance.

And it's also, again, it's a bit of a challenge because Minnesota has its own set of rules which are more restrictive than the federal rules. And so we've got to look at the EPA and what their requirements are. But ultimately, we rely on the Minnesota Department of Health for the guidance, in terms of I guess the regulation or the amount that we have to try and mitigate to is set by the Minnesota Department of Health. But the testing comes from the Minnesota PCA.

NINA MOINI: Got it.

TED KOZLOWSKI: And they do this quarterly now because they've detected it. The science of this is relatively new. I mean, all of these things were invented like in the '40s, right? And they really just discovered the issue with this about 25 years ago.

And so when I talked to the Minnesota Department of Health, they're always stressing that the science on this is evolving. But, one, our wells are very close to what's allowed, I guess. Not that that's a good thing.

But the fact is these PFAS are everywhere. They surround us, right? But they have to test it for, they have to have four consecutive quarters in order for them to hang their hat on, is this the actual number?

NINA MOINI: Got it.

TED KOZLOWSKI: It kind of thing.

NINA MOINI: OK. So what I'm hearing from you is some reliance there on state agencies. Can you talk a little bit, Mayor, about what happened with this federal funding that you all were hoping was gonna come through? And then what are your plans if that doesn't ever come through?

TED KOZLOWSKI: Yeah, so it's been a scramble for us. We were just made aware of this, I guess, a year and a half ago or so now. And so we basically reached out. I reached out to everybody at the fed gov, everybody at the state gov.

I basically rang every bell I could ring to try and get some help with this. And Congresswoman McCollum and her staff were awesome in trying to get a community project, I guess is what they call it, to support the treatment, kind of the temporary treatment that we have planned for a few of our wells.

And so we gave her a number of almost $7 million, kind of crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. And she was able to include over a million dollars in an environmental appropriations bill that was passed by their committee. But then ultimately, the House majority eliminated all of the community projects from their continuing resolution.

I'm getting good at the federal government lingo with this stuff. I've never had to ask the federal government for help with anything in the City of Stillwater. I think we're making history on that one.

So the process for asking for funds through Congress was new to me, for sure. But unfortunately, we just didn't get it. So now we're back at the state and working with our partners at the state, our state senator and our state rep, to try and get some funds from the state to help us with this as well.

NINA MOINI: And I want just for you to be able to clarify the relationship with Stillwater's water supply and 3M, because 3M is not paying for anything because the proof is not there. Or where does that stand?

TED KOZLOWSKI: Yeah, so it's hard. They have to build a signature. Apparently there's north of 5,000 different variants of these forever chemicals. And so they have to identify what those are. And they try to identify specifically where they came from.

And that's the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. And they haven't been able to assess that just yet. They're working on it. But until we can prove where they came from, we can't really identify the polluter responsible, that we could then try and go after for some compensation.

NINA MOINI: OK. And it sounds like Stillwater and some other cities, I'm reading 21 other cities, have until 2029 to meet some of these new rules around these forever chemicals and regulations. Is that looking feasible to you at four-ish years or so?

TED KOZLOWSKI: Yeah, I mean, we'll do it one way or another. Unfortunately, the worst-case scenario is we just have to put this on the backs of all of our residents in Stillwater. And unfortunately, the total project cost estimate, if we were to do everything today-- I guess the good news is they have these activated carbon filters now that will clean this out of our water. But the cost for us, for the City of Stillwater, just for us alone, is like $40 million.

And our annual budget, just to run the whole city is about $15 million. So to put that in perspective, I mean, that would be tripling everybody's taxes for a few years in order to fund the cost of this project. And it would really be unfeasible for our residents.

But we'll figure something out. We've got some time. And hopefully, we can continue to work with Congress and our partners at the state to come up with some funding and some help. But in the interim, we've got a good plan.

We've have some temporary facilities that we're building now with grants and public facility administration loans. So we're financing it through grants and loans now to do some temporary treatment that will help us over the next four years and keep everybody safe. And so we do have some runway to get this sorted. But ultimately, it's a $40-million problem and we desperately need some help from the state and fed.

NINA MOINI: All right, Mayor Ted Kozlowski of Stillwater, thank you so much for stopping by Minnesota Now. And best of luck with all of this.

TED KOZLOWSKI: Hey, thank you so much for having me.

NINA MOINI: Take care. Again, that was Ted Kozlowski, mayor of Stillwater.