The Monroe County Water Authority has joined a growing list of utilities, municipalities, and states suing chemical manufacturers over the mounting costs of filtering out so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
The authority filed a complaint in New York state Supreme Court on June 7 against 3M, Dupont, and other chemical companies whose toxic perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances have been found to have contaminated water supplies.
The chemicals, commonly called PFAS, are used in a variety of everyday products, such as dental floss, non-stick coatings, and toilet paper, and have been linked to cancer and other illnesses.
Hundreds of communities across the country have sought damages from the companies to deal with the health impacts and the cost of cleaning up polluted sites, and several companies have collectively set aside billions of dollars to settle the wave of claims.
Nick Noce, executive director of the Monroe County Water Authority, said keeping the utility’s water palatable and potable for the 800,000 people who rely on it has gotten more expensive due to filtering out PFAS.
“The ratepayers of the Monroe County Water Authority shouldn’t have to bear the cost of removing the chemicals that they didn’t put in the water in the first place,” Noce said.
In some communities across the country, PFAS have infiltrated the water supply to an extent that treatment facilities are not equipped to handle them, and the water is no longer safe to drink.
Noce said that is not the case here.
“The water that we supply continues to remain in compliance with our current federal and state quality standards,” he said.
But, he noted, threshold levels for PFAS could change, and that could make the treatment more expensive.
Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency in March signaled that it intends to require utilities to filter out PFAS to “near-zero levels.” The agency figured it would cost utilities $772 million to comply with the rule, although executives at some utilities have decried that estimate as far too low.
The chemicals have been dubbed “forever chemicals” because their components do not break down. They were widely used from the 1950s through the turn of the century, but manufacturing practices have changed considerably since the early 2000s.
Still, the practical applications of PFAS were so ubiquitous for so long that studies have shown that nearly all Americans carry the chemicals in their bloodstream. A 2020 study found that as many as 200 million Americans are exposed to PFAs in their drinking water.
