MPCA outlines PFAS strategy and PRISM rollout as manufacturers, medical-tech groups press for more time

Saint Paul — The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency told the Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee on Feb. 24 that the state has a plan to address PFAS contamination but warned the problem is widespread and costly, while industry witnesses raised technical and privacy concerns about the new PRISM reporting system and asked lawmakers to consider delaying the first reporting deadline.

Tom Johnson, director of government relations and external affairs for the MPCA, summarized the agency’s work on PFAS — a class of persistent, bioaccumulative fluorinated chemicals — and traced Minnesota’s response from early East Metro drinking-water discoveries to statewide monitoring and remediation efforts. Johnson said groundwater at more than 100 closed landfills exceeds Department of Health risk limits and that estimated drinking-water costs to the state exceed $1,000,000,000, noting the $850,000,000 settlement with 3M and earlier legislative appropriations for planning and site investigations.

The agency described a three-part approach: prevent PFAS releases, manage known contamination and clean up legacy pollution. Johnson said Minnesota published a PFAS blueprint in 2021 and has been working across agencies on monitoring, permitting and targeted cleanup projects. He also discussed a biosolids-testing strategy that puts facilities into tiers by PFAS level and said no facility has yet been placed in the highest, land-application–prohibiting tier.

Assistant Commissioner Kirk Koudelka reviewed implementation of Amara’s Law, including phased product prohibitions and the new PRISM reporting module. Under the statute, manufacturers must report intentionally added PFAS in products; Koudelka listed the required reporting items — product description, PFAS type, amount and function — and said the agency finalized rules that include trade-secret protections, concentration ranges and a manufacturer fee of $800 covering a product line. PRISM, built from an interstate clearinghouse platform used by other states, was described as fully launched in January 2026 with about 300 accounts and two reports already submitted; MPCA announced a version 1.1 update scheduled at month’s end to address soft-launch feedback.

Industry witnesses told the committee the system is not yet ready for statutory enforcement. Emily Jones, director of energy and environment policy at the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said, "PRISM, as launched, is not capable of supporting lawful compliance by the statutory deadline for our industry." Jones testified to persistent validation errors, missing component categories, unclear guidance about component-level reporting and a lack of technical support during the soft launch, warning those problems could produce widespread technical noncompliance.

Ben Wagner, interim director of government affairs and communications at Medical Alley, raised similar concerns and emphasized data-classification and privacy risks for medical-device information. Wagner noted Minnesota data-practices law presumes submitted information is public unless a company requests nonpublic classification, and he asked how long classification determinations will take and whether the agency has the expertise to adjudicate specialized proprietary data at scale.

Manufacturing representatives described practical barriers in complex supply chains. Philip Johnston, vice president at Daikin Applied Americas, said his company’s outreach to key suppliers produced a limited response rate and that compressed timelines could, in some cases, interrupt manufacturing if upstream suppliers stop selling into Minnesota rather than attempting to comply.

MPCA officials acknowledged the defects identified in the soft launch and outlined fixes. Koudelka said the agency will change some drop-down fields to open-text entry in version 1.1 and add missing product-component options when identified. Tom Johnson told the committee the agency’s initial enforcement stance will stress education and outreach rather than immediate penalties: "On day 2 we are not going out there looking to open up compliance cases," he said, and added that the agency can consider system outages or other implementation problems when evaluating enforcement and may move reporting dates if a system-wide failure occurs.

Committee members pressed MPCA on technical support, anticipated scale, and extension processes. MPCA cited a rule-based estimate that roughly 5,010 manufacturers may need to submit and said it will offer FAQs, user guides, template uploads and contractor support. The rule provides a 90-day extension mechanism (requested at least 30 days before the reporting date) and MPCA said it can postpone the reporting date for everyone if the system is broadly unavailable.

Advocates for strict implementation pushed back on calls for delay. Nora Strandy, who testified in memory of her sister Amara and who spoke during the committee hearing, told members Minnesota is a global leader on PFAS regulation and argued that a legislative postponement would be inappropriate because reporting problems should be addressed in rulemaking and by MPCA's iterative fixes: "The July reporting deadline isn't here yet. These companies still have time," she said.

What happens next: MPCA plans to release PRISM version 1.1 at the end of the month to address component-entry and usability issues, continue outreach and education through July, and proceed with rulemaking on currently unavoidable uses ahead of the 2032 nonessential-use prohibition. Manufacturers and medical-technology groups urged a legislative or administrative extension to July 1, 2027; MPCA said it will consider case-by-case extension requests and can act broadly if the system fails.

No committee votes or formal actions were taken at the hearing; members asked MPCA to provide lists of funded projects and more detail on biosolids monitoring, and the agency agreed to follow up with the requested information.