News Coverage
3M tells residents water OK to drink
Published February 6, 2008
3M officials last week presented three possible remedies for containing the perfluorochemical-contaminated groundwater at its Cottage Grove facility last week, taking responsibility for the required cleanup while telling residents their water is unequivocally safe to drink even with PFCs present.
The Maplewood-based company rolled out a team of experts to present the results of 3M’s environmental research at the 60-year-old Chemolite Plant in southern Cottage Grove and answer questions from residents concerned about contaminated drinking water.
Well water in nearby neighborhoods has been found to contain perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA), chemicals manufactured by 3M until early this decade for use in a variety of non-stick or stain-resistant products.
PFBA, which exits the body more quickly than its close PFC counterparts, is also present in Cottage Grove’s municipal drinking water, at levels deemed safe by state health officials.
Residents shouldn’t worry, though, 3M officials said Thursday night. PFCs have not been found to have any human health effects and pose a risk that is so low it’s indistinguishable from zero, said Carol Ley, a 3M occupational health official.
But the state health department has been more cautious, continuing to release fish consumption warnings last week after further testing on metro area lakes revealed PFCs were present in many, including Cottage Grove’s Ravine Lake.
Attendees were cordial to the corporate officials at the meeting, which was less tense than the informational session two nights prior with Minnesota Department of Health officials. Despite the concerns, residents aren’t angry at 3M, said Cottage Grove resident Paul Seaton, whose private well is contaminated. The company did what was legal to do when they did it, he said of the production and disposal of the chemicals that began in 1948. It was the best accepted practice at the time.
What locals are peeved with is a sense that 3M is kind of avoiding taking care of the problem, Seaton said. They have a vested interest in telling us what we want to hear, he said after the two hour-long meeting at Cottage Grove Junior High, adding, no, I don’t feel comfortable drinking that water unfiltered.
The source of Seaton and others’ well contamination isn’t known, 3M said Thursday, but it is likely a former 3M disposal site in Woodbury could be the source of the tainted drinking water, not the Cottage Grove facility. That facility already has a system of deep wells installed, collecting roughly 4 million gallons of water per day from an area around the old dump in an effort to contain PFC contamination in the soil and groundwater. The millions of gallons of water captured there are transferred directly south via pipe to the Cottage Grove facility, where it is used as a coolant, then discharged legally into the Mississippi River.
The three remedial options presented for 3M’s Cottage Grove site, required as part of an agreement with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, include similar wells in addition to varying amounts of soil extraction intended to expedite and expand the effort to remove PFCs from the site and prevent the chemicals from migrating off the company’s property into local groundwater. Speeding up that process is relative, though. Officials said they expected the remedial pumping at the Woodbury site to continue for roughly 100 years.
What are homeowners to do in the meantime?
Seaton, as well as Langdon residents Joe Murphy and Anne Redmond, said the feeling is that 3M is neglecting to take care of the residual problems from the PFCs on the company’s property.
Those in the affected areas expressed concern about decreased property values due to their contaminated wells, whether or not the water is safe and some elderly homeowners are worried they won’t be able to sell their house. “Are you going to buy a house for $200,000 and have the guy tell you there are filters in the basement because the water is contaminated?” Murphy asked.
As the junior high emptied Thursday night, two long-time Cottage Grove residents commented to each other as they exited the school, even after all the questions and all the concerns, that they hadn ‘t seen any side effects in two very familiar test subjects - themselves. “How long have we been drinking this water?” A long time, one attendee asked, adding, we’re still here, aren’t we?
