Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Environmental Health topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
City attorney urges Libby join national PFAS litigation; testing so far shows non-detects in water, mixed sewer results
Summary
City Attorney Chisholm advised the council to join a national PFAS class-action before a Dec. 31 filing deadline to preserve legal options; city staff reported drinking-water tests were non-detect, while some sewer tests showed elevated analyte readings that require further review.
City Attorney Chisholm told the Libby City Council that a national class-action related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has a filing deadline of Dec. 31 and urged the city to join now to preserve its rights if PFAS are later discovered in the system.
Chisholm said the city currently has no definitive information indicating a PFAS problem in its drinking water, but cautioned that if the city does not join the lawsuit before the deadline it could lose the opportunity to seek recovery later. "We don't have information right now indicating that we have a PFAS problem. However, if we don't join the class, we won't be after December 31 if we discover PFAS in the system," Chisholm said on the record.
City staff reported that the city has completed two rounds of testing on the municipal water system, with those samples returning non-detect results. Sewage samples are still under review; staff said they received a set of sewer results that showed some analytes at levels described in the meeting as "2300% of recommended balances" in particular tests, and that staff is reviewing about 1,000 different tests to locate where those readings came from and what they mean for the city.
City staff emphasized the financial stakes of PFAS remediation: the meeting record includes a staff remark that other municipalities with PFAS detections are looking at remediation costs "between 10 and 20,000,000" (phrasing as stated by staff). The council did not take a final vote on joining litigation at this meeting; Chisholm presented the item as an introduction and council members deferred further questions until the attorney could rejoin the meeting to answer them.
Chisholm and staff recommended that councilors hold further discussion at a subsequent meeting once staff completes its review of the lab results and the city attorney can provide fuller legal advice. No formal action was recorded at this session.
