3M has manufactured PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, since the early 1950s. It expects to discontinue manufacture in 2025. The state’s lawsuit focuses on groundwater contamination at an industrial park in Pennsville and Carneys Point, N.J and at another location in Parlin, N.J. The settlement also resolves all other statewide claims in litigation over PFAS in firefighting material used in the state.
It is the largest single clean-water settlement in New Jersey’s history. New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection will use a portion of the settlement funds to protect public health, safety and the environment from impacts caused by PFAS.
These environmental lawsuits are being litigated separately from the personal injury lawsuits consolidated for pre-trial purposes in a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) in the District of South Carolina. They share common goals, however, which include the protection of human health from widespread chemical contaminants.
The harm
PFAS are used in a range of consumer products like nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing and stain-resistant carpets. They are also a major component of firefighting foams used to combat jet fuel fires.
However, they do not degrade under natural circumstances and have consequently come to be known as “forever chemicals.” The good news is combined with the bad.
The EPA has linked PFAS exposure to metabolic disorders, decreased fertility in women and developmental delays in children, as well as increased risk of some prostate, kidney and testicular cancers.
They have also seeped into groundwater. From there, PFAS can continue to spread and contaminate private wells and municipal water supplies, further affecting agriculture and irrigation. It’s not just drinking water; it’s the food supply, too.
Hard to clean up groundwater – really hard
The legal news is good – big settlement, lots of cleanup money, etc. But the environmental news is not encouraging.
It’s very hard to clean up flowing water, much less the vast underground lakes of fresh water contaminated with chemicals that do not biodegrade. So far, the scientific community seems to be still slicing and dicing the problem – developing protocols for testing water and defining what we mean by “clean.”
Two major remediation strategies seem to have emerged: in-situ (onsite) remedies and ex-situ (offsite) approaches.
Onsite ideas
Onsite approaches focus on injecting materials into the subsurface that can absorb and immobilize PFAS. One strategy involves injecting colloidal activated carbon into the contaminated area (perhaps like spreading kitty litter on a garage oil spill). Another involves building a horizontal barrier (imagine a floor) on the bottom of the soil area to stop the seepage. A third involves pouring peroxide into the problem, as if it were a budding ear infection.
Offsite ideas
This involves extracting groundwater from contaminated sites, transporting it to a treatment facility, and filtering it using activated carbon or ion exchange resins. This appears to be effective but is extremely expensive.
Then what happens to the water? The treated groundwater would then be either returned to the aquifer or discharged to surface water.
Critics of the offsite approach suggest that pulling poisonous water out of the ground could actually increase the risk of dangerous human exposure to PFAS.
Other ideas
- Degrading PFAS using UV and visible light (also known as “photocatalysis) is an emerging technology that might be cost-effective;
- While generally not seen as effective for PFAS water contamination because of the chemicals’ persistence, some forms of bioremediation are being explored; and
- Applying sorbent materials to soil to prevent PFAS from leaching into groundwater is another approach.
This analysis is likely not fair to science – apologies all around – but the problem is clear. How can we stay healthy?
State action and personal injury lawsuits
READ MORE PFAS HEALTH RISKS LEGAL NEWS
As of December 2024, the Attorneys General of 30 states and DC have brought lawsuits against the manufacturers of PFAS chemicals for contaminating water supplies and other natural resources. These lawsuits are being pursued separately from PFAS contamination lawsuits that have been consolidated in South Carolina. Many of the MDL lawsuits focus particularly on aqueous foams that have been used for decades to fight fuel fires.
One way to understand the relationship between these two strands of litigation is to think about them as attacking different links in a chain of causation. People who have never fought a fire are nonetheless harmed by the resulting PFAS contamination of the water supply. The problem of environmental contamination is now so large that several different approaches to a solution are needed.
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