3M PFAS settlement will send $250 million to Long Island water districts in first phase

More than two dozen Long Island water suppliers will get $250 million as part of a sprawling multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement against 3M, a manufacturer of toxic PFAS "forever chemicals," water district officials said Wednesday.

Districts received the first round of payouts last week and more will flow in later this year and over the next 11 years, according to Robert McEvoy, chair of the Long Island Water Conference, a trade group for local suppliers, and commissioner of the Oyster Bay Water District, which is party to the suit.

The Suffolk County Water Authority announced it will receive $34 million and more will be paid out until 2033.

For years, Long Island suppliers have been installing expensive filtering technologies to comply with drinking water standards. Some of the costs were covered through state funds and districts sued manufacturers to recoup costs. Many districts also raised rates or added surcharges to help pay for the systems, and their continuing monitoring, testing for contaminants and maintenance of the systems.

It wasn't immediately clear how the payouts would affect ratepayers. 

"We’re gratified to be receiving this award, and to see a major polluter of our aquifer be held to account for their actions," SCWA chair Charlie Lefkowitz said in a statement.

The full list of Long Island suppliers that stand to benefit was not immediately available Wednesday.

Claims by roughly 12,000 public water systems across the country were consolidated into one multi-district litigation, which was assigned to federal district court in South Carolina. Under the settlement agreement with 3M, which was approved by the court in March 2024, the company will pay between $10.5 billion and $12.5 billion to water districts to help cover the costs of filtering PFAS from their water supplies. Payments will be distributed in annual increments, with the final round to be paid in 2036, according to court documents.

3M did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

Local water districts are also party to a separate case against another PFAS manufacturer, Dupont, and its spinoff Chemours. The South Carolina court approved a settlement of nearly $1.2 billion in that case last year, some of which is expected to be paid to Long Island water districts.

PFAS chemicals have been used in thousands of products, including nonstick coatings, water-resistant clothing and firefighting foam, and they are found in common household items such as shampoo and dental floss. The chemicals are released into surface waters from PFAS manufacturing plants and they seep into the groundwater from polluted industrial sites and when they flow down bathroom drains. PFAS have been found in human blood, organs and breast milk, and they have poisoned farm animals and wildlife.

Exposure to the chemicals has been linked to developmental delays in children, decreased immunity and increased risk of certain cancers, such as prostate, testicular and kidney.

Lawyers and investigative reporters found that 3M and Dupont knew the compounds were toxic as early as the 1950s, in the case of 3M, and at least as early as the 1970s, in the case of Dupont, but they kept that information from the public and their own employees for decades.

It’s unclear if water districts will lower rates once they get reimbursed for some of their treatment expenses. McEvoy said he’d be reluctant to lower the cost of water as the Oyster Bay water district is working to encourage water conservation. A more likely scenario would be "if we were to see we did not need that amount of revenue to cover our expenses, we would most likely lower our tax rates."

The Suffolk County Water Authority did not respond to a question about whether $80-per-year surcharges added to customers' bills in 2019 to help pay for PFAS treatment would continue.

The Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden established stricter standards than the state for some PFAS, at 4 parts per trillion, and 10 ppt for others. It estimated the nationwide cost of complying with the standard would be $1.5 billion annually. The agency also said when the regulation was finalized in April 2024 it "will protect 100 million people from PFAS exposure, prevent tens of thousands of serious illnesses, and save lives."

The rules were to go into effect in 2029 but the Trump administration in May announced it planned to delay the deadline for compliance until 2031 for PFOA and PFOS, and to rescind the limits on four others.

There are thousands of different PFAS compounds, most of them not regulated by the state or federal government.