Earlier this year a federal judge in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina approved a multibillion-dollar settlement with two PFAS manufacturers, DuPont and 3M.
Now, thousands of public water systems across the country have until Friday to file a PFAS settlement claim. That includes close to 200 water utilities in Michigan.
The cities of Kalamazoo and Portage said they are working to meet the deadline. But Portage city manager Pat McGinnis said some municipalities may not file.
“I'm afraid that Michigan is not as wide awake on this as they could be,” McGinnis said.
“I hope that many of our water systems wake up and say, ‘well, wait a minute, we better get our stuff in.’”
While Portage has detected PFAS in some samples, McGinnis said the city's drinking water meets standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the State of Michigan.
But that might not always be the case, since the "forever chemicals" are a widespread pollutant. In some places, plumes of PFAS contamination are moving toward uncontaminated drinking water sources.
In February, the EPA released data that showed some 70 million people in the US have PFAS in their drinking water.
“It's in the Great Lakes. It's in our rivers. It's in our groundwater,” McGinnis said.
“So, you know, I just think that there's this attitude that, ‘well that's not us, that's somebody else.’ Well it's not. It's us.”
McGinnis said he wants his city to be prepared to fight PFAS contamination should it ever threaten the drinking water.
He called the settlement “preemptive,” and encouraged other public water systems to submit a claim this week to help meet the costs of future mitigation.
South Carolina attorney Mike Stag serves on the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the AFFF (Aqueous Film-Forming Foam) litigation. He said public utilities included in phase one were notified by the court of the July 26 deadline.
But he said some water departments may not bother to file a claim because like Portage, their PFAS levels are currently low, and they don’t think they have a problem.
“You could be delivering safe, clean water to your customers, but still get money under this settlement,” Stag said.
“It's not about whether your water has problems. It's about possible future problems and keeping the water clean.”
Stag said water systems may also be confused about the terms of the settlement. According to Stag, they’re simple.
“If you don't do anything, you've settled your claim and you're releasing your liability. So, you can either get paid for it or you can release it and get nothing. That’s the bottom line, legally.”
Stag said the two settlements, which total almost $14 billion, will help pay for the cost of removing PFAS from drinking water. It can also be used to pay for ongoing testing for PFAS contamination and to cover the costs to meet new, stricter EPA regulations on PFAS in drinking water.
Public utilities included in phase two have until June 30, 2026 to submit a claim.
