State officials tell committee PFAS settlements will cover only a sliver of cleanup costs

At an April 8 hearing of the House Capital Investment Committee, Oliver Larson, an assistant attorney general who manages the Environmental and Natural Resources Division, and Kirk Adelka, assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, told lawmakers that multibillion-dollar national settlements over PFAS contamination will not be enough to fully fund local drinking-water projects.

The briefings came as several East Metro communities are seeking state aid to respond to PFAS contamination and related infrastructure needs.

Larson said two national settlements — one with DuPont and one with 3M — together make about $12 billion to $13 billion available to eligible water systems, but recovery will be slow and individual communities should not expect full funding. “I would be shocked if there's any community that's going to get more than about 10% of what they need to build the projects that they're contemplating,” Larson said. He added that a typical payout is likely to be closer to 3%–5% of project costs and that the first checks from the federal claims process probably will not be issued until 2026.

Larson described the federal case as a “massive, sprawling” multidistrict litigation in federal court in South Carolina. He said roughly 12,000 water systems were eligible under the national settlements and about 900, or roughly 7 percent, opted out of the settlement process. He also said the federal claims-administration process will allocate funds over roughly a 10-year period, with a complex submission and distribution process.

Adelka told the committee the Minnesota 3M settlement funds have been actively allocated to projects and that the agency’s projections show those funds will likely be committed by fiscal year 2027. “Our last projections are in the fall, but we estimate the funds will run out because of capital projects and ongoing operation projects that are already planned in fiscal year 2027,” Adelka said. He said the state will present updated projections to affected communities in May.

Adelka listed about 15 communities and jurisdictions tied to contamination from four disposal sites that state investigators have linked to PFAS in the East Metro. He named Maplewood, Oakdale, Lake Elmo, Woodbury, Saint Paul Park, Newport, Cottage Grove; the city of Afton; West Lakeland and Denmark townships; Lakeland Shores; and the Prairie Island Indian Community, among others. He also noted the Washington County landfill and several 3M facilities in Oakdale, Woodbury and Cottage Grove as key disposal sites tied to contamination.

State officials said the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has opened about 20 investigations to identify responsible parties in affected communities. Adelka and Larson both said pursuing cost recovery from responsible parties takes years and frequently runs up against solvency limits of manufacturers. Larson warned that continued litigation pressure can push manufacturers into bankruptcy, reducing the recoverable funds.

Committee members asked whether communities pursuing state funds could be asked whether they “opted in” or “opted out” of the national settlements. Larson said opt-in status is not privileged and can be requested of communities directly, though the national claims administrator previously declined to provide a full list to outside requesters. Adelka urged lawmakers to consider statutory tools under development that would allow the state to bond for local projects and later recover those costs if responsible parties are identified.

Why it matters: committee members heard that while national and state settlements create meaningful resources, they are a partial source relative to the scale of infrastructure and treatment work communities plan. State 3M funds are already heavily committed and federal funds from the multidistrict settlement will be slow and limited on a per-project basis.

Ending: Committee members said the update will guide how they consider capital requests from East Metro communities in coming weeks; state staff said they will provide updated allocation projections to local work groups in May.