Hastings to receive 3M settlement money to treat 'forever chemicals'

The city of Hastings will get help from the state of Minnesota’s settlement with 3M to pay to treat “forever chemicals” in its drinking water supply.

All six of the city's wells contain PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Five of the wells have levels above new, enforceable federal limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

However, until now, Hastings wasn’t eligible for funding from the state’s 2018 legal settlement with 3M over PFAS pollution in the east Twin Cities metro, because state officials hadn’t directly linked its contamination to chemicals manufactured by 3M. That $850 million settlement has helped several other communities pay for treatment systems to remove PFAS.

This week, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency announced it has tied PFAS in one of Hastings’ wells to 3M's manufacturing site in Cottage Grove. Assistant Commissioner Kirk Koudelka said the state will help cover the city’s cost to treat water from that well with settlement money.

“Now they have a source of funding for a portion of one of those treatment plants to move forward, which would reduce the need for them to go to their residents,” Koudelka said. “This helps relieve that burden on the residents of Hastings.” 

City Administrator Dan Wietecha said Hastings expects to get about $14.5 million from the 3M settlement, but it falls short of the $70 million needed to build three new treatment plants.

“It helps a ton,” he said, but added, “It's still a budget buster for the residents and businesses of Hastings. We've got a long way to go.”

Koudelka said the investigation traced a newer 3M-made chemical, known as TFSI, to the Hastings well, not the federally regulated one that’s driving the city’s treatment project.

“Rather, it’s helping us show the path of how other PFAS are getting to the well,” he said.

The chemicals likely traveled down the Mississippi through a fault along the river, where they entered the groundwater and got into the city well, he said.

Koudelka said the MPCA is continuing to investigate the source of PFAS in the city's other wells.

Wietecha said Hastings officials disagree that the terms of the 2018 settlement require the MPCA to show a direct link in order for the city to qualify.

“It’s been a lot of effort the past year and a half in order to prove that there is a connection,” Wietecha said. He said the city intends to keep working with the MPCA to investigate connections for the other wells, “but we're not at that point yet.”

The EPA gave cities with PFAS contamination five years to meet the new EPA drinking water standards when it issued them in April. Hastings is one of 22 Minnesota cities with PFAS levels that exceed the standards.

3M did not respond to a request for comment on the MPCA’s finding.

The Maplewood-based company has manufactured PFAS at its Cottage Grove facility since the 1950s. They were used in a variety of consumer and industrial products, including furniture, cookware, carpet and water-resistant clothing. They’re known as “forever chemicals” because of their tendency to persist in the environment, humans and wildlife.

Some of the compounds have been linked to human health impacts, including kidney and thyroid problems, reproductive issues and cancer.

3M phased out the production of the two most widely known and harmful PFAS compounds, known as PFOS and PFOS, in the early 2000s. But it continues to produce other replacement PFAS with shorter carbon chains. 

The company has said it plans to discontinue manufacturing PFAS by the end of 2025.

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