MPCA presents PFAS removal report with fee options; estimates range from millions to billions depending on scope

Assistant Commissioner Kirk Koudelka and Fox Char, planning director and MPCA PFAS coordinator, briefed the committee on the agency’s PFAS removal report, which outlines fee-design options and preliminary cost estimates to remove PFAS from drinking water and wastewater.

Koudelka said the agency provided a “menu” of policy choices the legislature could use to design a fee or charge to fund PFAS removal and related programs. The report frames three foundational questions: who pays, how fees are structured, and what revenue targets to set.

The presenters cautioned that the universe of potential PFAS payers in Minnesota is uncertain. The MPCA said depending on reporting definitions, the number of entities subject to a fee could range widely (from a very small number of manufacturers to thousands of businesses that use or sell products containing intentionally added PFAS). The agency noted that federal reporting (Chemical Data Reporting, Toxic Release Inventory) and a forthcoming state product reporting rule will change available data over time.

On potential revenue targets and costs, the MPCA provided several preliminary estimates: initial community drinking-water treatment for a set of about 20 systems was roughly estimated at $163,000,000; sampling 10% of private wells statewide was estimated at about $580,000,000, and if 2% of sampled private wells required treatment, the MPCA estimated treatment costs at about $7,300,000. The agency estimated that regional wastewater source-reduction planning could cost between $7,000,000 and $85,000,000; full end‑of‑pipe wastewater treatment across systems could be several billion dollars — the report cited a $23,300,000,000 back-end estimate for broad wastewater treatment scenarios.

Char told the committee that currently available destruction technologies are not proven at full facility scale; many technologies remain at pilot scale, and removal systems (for example, granular activated carbon or ion exchange used in drinking-water treatment) produce media that then requires handling and disposal. MPCA staff noted Minnesota has no hazardous-waste incinerator to destroy PFAS-contaminated media, so media may need to be transported out of state for disposal.

Committee members pressed the agency on how a fee could be structured (flat fee, per‑pound fee, or targeted revenue goal) and whether fees could be tiered by chemical type or toxicity. The MPCA said differentiating by chemical risk would require more data and risk values and that policy choices about scope and duration of a fee would affect the universe of payers, particularly as Minnesota’s law restricts intentional uses of PFAS unless designated currently unavoidable.