The 3M Co. will clean up pollution — but only pollution from certain places.
Company lawyers said Thursday that 3M will not pay for more than $4 million in current pollution cleanup costs in Cottage Grove. They argue that a 2007 agreement with the state says 3M must pay for pollution that it dumped but not pollution dumped by someone else.
In Cottage Grove, they say, the pollution in groundwater could have come from other sources — even a city fire station.
In an escalating argument, officials of the company, the state and the city are disputing who will repay the city for expenses. Because of chemicals manufactured by 3M, the city has put temporary filters on two city wells and has starting digging a new well earlier than was previously planned.
The bill — so far — is $4 million for the city. Total expenses could climb to $15 million when permanent filters are installed, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, or MPCA.
Whatever happens, said city administrator Charlene Stevens, Cottage Grove will not pay. She said the MPCA has agreed to pay for the city’s water-system upgrades and then — presumably — be reimbursed by 3M.
3M’s statement angered Rep. Dan Schoen, DFL-St. Paul Park. Schoen said in a Facebook post that it’s unfair to have taxpayers shoulder the costs.
“Large corporations will always try to make the public pay for the impacts of their business,” wrote Schoen. “I hope it does not come to a courtroom to make 3M do what is right and clean up their mess.”
The assertion from 3M came on the heels of a similar statement Monday, in which the company refused to pay $377,000 in separate cleanup costs in Oakdale, Woodbury and Cottage Grove.
The justification was the same. 3M attorneys said that according to a 2007 agreement, 3M will pay for pollution coming from three dumpsites where the company put it. But when 3M sells materials to others, who then dump it into groundwater, 3M is not liable.
That means, they say, when firefighting foam is used on fires, 3M is not liable if pollution from the foam sinks into groundwater.
3M attorneys argue that is what happened in Cottage Grove. In a document disclosed this week, 3M listed fires in which the foam was used at the former Marathon Refinery in St. Paul Park and at Up North Plastics in Cottage Grove.
Ironically, one potential source is owned by the city itself.
According to a consultant hired by the state, a fire station at 8641 80th Street has been used for training purposes, including putting out fires with the foam. That could be a source of the pollution, the lawyers said.
The MPCA issued a two-sentence response Friday, from spokesman Walker Smith: “Our belief is that the contamination came from the Woodbury dump site. We don’t believe it came from the use of firefighting foam.”
The story of how the pollution ended up in Cottage Grove starts in the 1940s. That’s when 3M began to make PFCs, or perfluorochemicals, for use in fire extinguishers, nonstick cookware and stain repellant.
3M legally disposed of the chemicals in dumpsites in Oakdale, Lake Elmo and Woodbury, ending in the 1970s. It stopped making the most harmful types of PFCs in 2002.
But two years later, tiny traces were discovered in the drinking water of 65,000 people in Washington County. Since then, 3M has spent more than $100 million cleaning it out.
The amount of PFCs in groundwater has been dropping and is now measured in parts per trillion. All citywide systems in the affected area had water well below the allowable limits — until the state slashed those limits.
That put two of Cottage Grove’s wells over the guidelines. The announcement came May 23, and since then Cottage Grove officials have been scrambling to add temporary filters to city wells.
3M has said that because the amounts are so tiny — a trillion seconds is equal to 33,000 years — it is possible that foam used to fight a single fire pushed the PFCs over the limit.
An emailed response came from 3M attorney William A. Brewer III of the Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors firm. It reads: “3M requires evidence that the environmental presence of the PFCs in question emanates from disposal sites for which it has responsibility. That seems like a fair and reasonable expectation – in keeping with the shared commitments between 3M and the State.”
Said Brewer: “The state admits that it has not conducted the due diligence necessary to confirm whether there are other sources responsible for PFCs impacting the Cottage Grove public water system.”
Neither the state nor 3M had further comments regarding proof of where the pollution came from, or future potential costs.