With EPA’s National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for PFAS now finalized, the recently announced 3M and DuPont settlements, stemming from the ongoing Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF) Multi-District Litigation (MDL) promise access to billions of dollars to cover PFAS treatment and monitoring expenses for water systems across the county.
Faced with significant costs of treatment for PFAS contamination, over the past few years many water systems have filed lawsuits against PFAS manufacturers, seeking to hold the companies responsible for water pollution. These lawsuits have been grouped into the AFFF MDL that eventually led to the proposed PFAS class action settlements.
An MDL is a consolidated legal process in which multiple lawsuits filed by public water providers, property owners, personal injury plaintiffs, and sovereigns (such as states, territories, and tribes) from across the country have been grouped together. All the lawsuits in the AFFF MDL claim that the plaintiffs have been negatively impacted by contamination stemming from the use of AFFF, a PFAS-containing firefighting foam, as well as other PFAS products. In an effort to resolve some of these legal claims, DuPont and its related companies, Chemours and Corteva, offered U.S. public water providers a settlement totaling $1.1859 billion in June 2023. Shortly after the DuPont settlement was announced, 3M agreed to pay U.S. public water providers up to $12.5 billion over 13 years in settlement funds. DuPont’s settlement received final approval in February 2024, while 3M’s received final approval in March.
Water Finance and Management
By Ken Sansone & Mike DiGiannantonio
APRIL 8, 2024