DuPont and two related companies said they would pay close to $1.2bn to settle liability claims brought by public water systems serving the vast majority of the US population on Friday, just days before the start of a bellwether trial in South Carolina over PFAS contamination.
PFAS maker 3M was reportedly also considering a settlement that would keep the company from having to face allegations that it was responsible for knowingly contaminating drinking water supplies around the United States.
The trial set to start on Monday is expected to shine a light on long-held secret documents about the chemical giant 3M’s knowledge of the dangers of its per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). 3M has previously announced it will exit PFAS production by 2025.
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DuPont and its related companies were recently severed from the case, as they negotiated the settlement in which DuPont will pay roughly $400m ; Chemours, a DuPont spinoff, will pay $592m; and another DuPont-related company, Corteva, will pay about $193m.
The companies said the settlement excludes personal injury claims due to alleged exposure to PFAS, as well as claims by state attorneys general about PFAS contamination of natural resources.
Bloomberg reported on Friday that 3M was negotiating a $10bn payout that would resolve claims and avoid Monday’s trial.
Asked about a potential settlement, 3M said in a statement: “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation.”
3M said earlier in a court filing that it was not liable and that it “never owned, operated, or otherwise controlled the facilities, disposal sites, and other purported sources of PFAS or related compounds”. The company lacked the “necessary controls over its products after the point of sale”, it said in the filing.
The company said in a statement that it was working to stop the use of PFAS across its product portfolio by the end of 2025, even though “PFAS are safely made and used in many modern products”.
4,000 other plaintiffs
The plaintiff in the trial scheduled to start on Monday is the small city of Stuart, Florida, which is suing over the contamination of its drinking water with two types of PFAS called PFOS and PFOA that were used in firefighting foam by local firefighters.
More than 4,000 other plaintiffs are also part of the broader litigation being overseen by the US district court in Charleston, South Carolina. The multi-district litigation (MDL) aims to recover the expenses public and private water utilities are incurring to test, monitor and replace water supplies and to install equipment to try to clear the chemicals from tainted systems.
Stuart, a city of about 17,000 people on Florida’s Atlantic coast, discovered its drinking water wells had been contaminated in 2016 when state regulators informed city officials that some of its well water contained levels of PFOA and PFOS higher than what the Environmental Protection…
2023-06-02 15:00:51
Post from www.theguardian.com
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