3M Co. has settled a lawsuit with Minnesota's Attorney General Lori Swanson for $850 million. The state had sought $5 billion for natural resources damage and human health problems it said were linked to a chemical formerly used in Scotchgard.
"The funds will be used to finance projects which involve drinking water and the water sustainability," the state said in a statement.
What began in 2010 as a lawsuit over fish and waterways in Minnesota had turned into a battle over whether 3M had contributed to health problems in its home state. In November, Minnesota said it had found cancer and premature births outside Minneapolis and would seek punitive damages. 3M and a state study released on the eve of trial have said there is no health problem.
Controversy is growing over the main chemicals involved, PFOS and PFOA, as well as the entire class of perfluorinated compounds -- or PFCs -- which are still used in stainproof and waterproof treatments and food packaging. The situation tested a state's ability to force a major employer to pay for pollution as the United States relaxes environmental rules. It also shows how liability can mushroom long after companies stop making chemicals like PFCs that don't degrade, but accumulate in the food chain.
3M has also been sued by people, towns and water districts across the United States, with claims the chemicals got into drinking water from sites like air force bases where they were used in firefighting foams, and in one case, a tannery where they were used to treat leather.
3M, best known for Post-It notes, dumped chemicals at sites near Minneapolis for more than 40 years -- allowing them to get into wildlife and drinking water, Swanson claimed. The company knew the chemicals were harmful, but concealed the effects from regulators and distorted science on them, according to the lawsuit. It was one of the biggest amounts sought yet in growing lawsuits over PFCs.
3M denied the claims, saying the chemicals aren't a health risk at current exposures. It hasn't found adverse effects among its employees, who are exposed at higher levels than the general population, 3M said. The company announced a phase-out of PFOA and PFOS -- chemicals commonly used in nonstick applications such as Teflon -- in 2000, around the same time as reports emerged that they were being found in most humans, including babies, and remote animals like polar bears.
It's unusual to see a natural-resources suit raise human health issues, said Karen Bradshaw, an associate professor at Arizona State University who tracks such litigation.
As 3M's case progressed -- at one point taking a four-year detour when the company sought to disqualify Minnesota's counsel Covington & Burling because it had once represented 3M on the chemicals' use in microwave popcorn bags -- science advanced. In 2012, the results of a study of 80,000 people who sought to sue DuPont over PFOA were released, establishing links to cancers, ulcerative colitis and other health issues.
New reports on the health of Minnesota-area residents were expected to be a centerpiece of the trial. Minnesota said its expert report shows higher rates of cancers, leukemia, premature births and lower fertility in the suburbs east of St. Paul prior to 2006, when there were particularly high amounts of the chemicals in municipal water. But a week before the trial, Minnesota's Department of Health said it didn't find unusual rates of cancers or adverse birth outcomes.
Business on 02/21/2018