LAKE ELMO, Minn. — PFAS are forever chemicals in everyday items like nonstick pans, dental floss and food packaging that can build up in our bodies and harm our health.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, they have the potential to cause certain cancers and birth defects.
Funds from one of the largest environmental damage cases in US history – between the State of Minnesota and 3M – pay $140 million treatment facilities in Cottage GroveBut other communities will have to foot part of the bill themselves.
From the air, Lake Elmo’s Raleigh Creek looks like a serene stream. But city officials say the water is blazing a trail of pollution.
“It’s really a creek that flows from Oakdale to Lake Elmo, and it has been the route of the PFAS from the Oakdale landfill,” said Lake Elmo city engineer Jack Griffin.
Lake Elmo discovered in 2004 that there were PFAS in the city’s drinking water. After investing $20 million in city funds to address the problem, the city is now one of many eastern metro areas filtering it at 3M’s expense.
“We expect, and rightly so, that the water we drink from our tap is clean and healthy,” said Lake Elmo City Council member Jeff Holtz. “Those dollars are used to protect our health.”
Head south to Hastings and you’ll find the PFAS problem there too. Ryan Stempski, the city’s public works director, says they have nowhere to turn to find clean water.
“Unfortunately, all six of our wells contained PFAS,” Stempski said.
He brought WCCO to the site where the city will soon build the first of three treatment facilities, at a total cost of $70 million, with another million per year for maintenance.
But unlike Lake Elmo, Hastings doesn’t have a plan to cover all costs.
“We in Hastings believe that polluters should pay,” Stempski said. “And we are currently working with the state on many investigations.”
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Kirk Kodelka, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), agrees with Stempski.
“Those responsible for the contamination of drinking water should be the ones paying for the improvements to provide residents with safe drinking water,” Kodelka said.
After years of being left out of 3M dollars for PFAS pollution settlements, Hastings recently found out it will get out about $14.5 million to treat one well after an MPCA investigation linked the PFAS source to a 3M landfill.
That’s in addition to a few million MPCA dollars to design the treatment plants. While that could increase with ongoing investigations, they wonder who will pay the remaining $55 million that will be needed to build the needed treatment facilities and the ongoing, expensive operating costs.
Stempski says the city will still have to raise rates for residents who still drink water containing PFAS.
“Our residents are uncomfortable,” Stempski said. “And it’s frustrating.”
Lake Elmo’s Well Two is used sparingly because its PFAS levels are about 10 parts per trillion, more than double the EPA’s recently lowered limit of less than 4 parts per trillion.
Those are drops in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but the federal government says it’s enough to make people sick. That is why the city is going to build a filter system at Well Two.
The city is also drilling a new well to meet growing demand, but they are building it knowing the site is contaminated with PFAS, so they will have to treat it. It is the only option for this small community facing an overwhelming problem.
“It feels like a huge waste of money,” Griffin said.
And they won’t be alone. With the new EPA regulations, countless communities across this state and country will go through the same steps to filter out PFAS.
In Minnesota alone, the MPCA says 20 years of cleanup will cost between $14 billion and $28 billion.
“We can lead by example and maybe we can help increase understanding for others so they know how you do it,” Holtz said.
It’s a staggering and expensive undertaking, regardless of who pays for it.
“We are on the cusp of something we don’t want to be, yet here we are,” Holtz said.
Wednesday on WCCO 4 News at 6, Erin Hassanzadeh will sit down with a former 3M scientist who is now speaking out. We’ll dive into what she says about the dangers of PFAS, what the company knew and when.
Erin Hassanzadeh
