The Cancer-Linked Chemical In America's Tap Water

the radio Shack guy on the Show's Stranger Things. He's the guy next door who wants to help, a bit of an unsung hero, and he actually has worked at Radio Shack while being mayor. Cottage Grove has also experienced some really strange events this year since three M has had a factory here along the Mississippi River, and in May, three MS passed caught up with Cottage Grove. At the time, I was in Las Vegas at a convention marketing our city when our city administrator received the call. The call

was from the Minnesota State Health Department. The agency was about to make an announcement that would affect Cottage Grow directly. It was rolling out new guidelines lowering the acceptable levels of a certain type of chemical in the drinking water. It said there was no emergency. The change was just to protect infants and children. Myron had known for years that certain chemicals called p fas or p f a s were made and used at the three M factory.

He knew they were present in the city's drinking water, but recently news stories have been reporting more information about links to health issues like weakened immune responses, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, and cancer. So we ended up having to declare a state of emergency, and we did that right after the announcement. Myron recalled how concerned some residents were

when the news broke. There were some that were, you know, screaming that you know, Cottage Grove is any what they used to I guess like to call a cancer cluster. I've had moms and dad's called me crying because they were concerned about the health of their their children or their unborn baby. At the time, this was the beginning of a long journey for Myron and his town, because it turns out the chemicals aren't just in the water in Cottage Grove. The chemicals are pretty much everywhere, and

they'll likely be around forever. Hi, I'm Kiaga Kari and I'm Tiffany Carrey. And this week on Decrypted, we're exploring the dire unintended consequences of a group of chemicals that have contaminated America's drinking water. They were once seen as dazzling innovations. Now scientific studies show that could be serious health consequences, but people exposed to them even in minute quantities. In February, three M reached an eight hundred and fifty

million dollars settlement with the State of Minnesota about the issue. Afterward, the state Attorney General published some of the information she had gathered during the case, seeing the company had known about the risks for decades and the public had a right to know. A spokesperson for three M says the chemicals aren't a danger to public health and that the

company has long been committed to researching the substances. Three M also says the internal memos are a small set of documents that quote portray and incomplete and misleading story and distorts the full record of three m's work. It also distorts quote who we are as a company. But now those documents create a bit of a roadmap for other people who have since filed lawsuits. So even though the States lawsuit is settled, it's not the end of

the story. Three M declined to comment on any pending litigation. Stay with us. We're focusing today's story on Cottage Grove because it's one of the communities that's exposed to these chemicals the longest. But if you look at drinking water statistics, Cottage Grove has something in common with dozens of other towns around the country, a third of the US population.

In fact, you just heard us refer to the chemicals as p FAST, but they've gone by lots of other names too, p f c s or fcs or flora carbons. They're all one group of chemicals, and it's estimated there are three thousand to five thousand variations of them. From here on, will refer to them as p fasts. And the key thing about them is these chemicals are man made. They involved carbon fluorine bonds, and they don't occur in nature.

This is technology at the molecular level. The chemicals were developed in the nineteen forties and their ability to separate out uranium helped create the atomic bomb. After the Second World War, three M acquired the patent. From then it got into three MS products and those made by other companies, things like firefighting foams, packaging for greasy fast food, and outdoor gear like jack It's intense. It also sold the chemicals to other companies like DuPont, which used them in

teflon manufacturing. Some varieties were phased out by three M by two and two, and then it started making new varieties. Some scientists have said they don't linger as long in the human body, but there are still concerns. Today they're used in the tech industry, in electronics manufacturing and many other places to make smooth surfaces. It's not entirely clear how many things PU fast is in electronics manufacturing and

mining fluids have come up. The planting Cottage Grove makes everything from post it notes to Scotch tape, to reflective road signs and the smooth finish on golf clubs. Here's Myron again. M has got a very large facility here in Cottage Growth. UM They employ I believe now it's over a thousand people in their facility here. They do more than just dealing with chemicals. They do technology, They do a variety of other things. UM so they're very

I guess you'd say very vested in the community. Myron has lived in Cottage Grove all his life, and he's drank the water and says he's fine. But he's told me there's been a fear in the community, a fear that cancer was caused by the drinking water. We knew something was up. They knew something was up way back when this kind of ball began. In fact, more than a decade ago, a local lawyer named Gail Pearson was one of the first people to look into the matter.

Gail is someone who would be considered Minnesota nice all the way. She said that back in two thousand and three, she had been contacted by some lawyers working on a personal injury case in West Virginia. It was a case about chemicals in the water near a plant that made teflon. Back then it was a DuPont plant, but now it's owned by their spinoff. Mrs Gail realized that one of the chemicals was p f o A, a type of p fasts that had been made by three m in

Cottage Grove. She started looking into it, and actually I went online and saw a lot of information from the environmental working group and started to learn about pi FoST and it's contamination not only in Washington County or West Virginia, but actually in the world. I realized this is a really important issue and and I had to get involved. Washington County is the larger area where Cottage Grove is located, back when it was mostly farmland. Three m had don't

waste there and in three other towns nearby. We wanted ourselves to to investigate what the science was saying about the soil and the water in the area. So we actually hired our own chemists, and we asked folks around the dump areas if we could come on their property and test their soil samples and test their water. Along the way, we someone asked the question, what about what about the people living in this area? Where would they

be contaminated? So we that led Gale to start asking people if they would allow her to test their blood to see if this chemical post was present. And as the information was coming back from the laboratory, we realized that we add a hotbed of contamination in the blood of the community. And I don't believe that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency or the Department of Health was testing human serum samples at that time. I think we were

the first group that we're doing this. Gail said she learned a few things from those tests, but the most striking discovery was that the concentration of the chemicals seemed to be highest in children and the elderly. She passed the information on to the Minnesota Department of Health and

to the state Attorney General's office. She also started building a class action case against three M. The individuals that we actually tested and were involved and felt very strongly that three M had not been a good neighbor, had really violated their person, their property, and really needed to be held accountable. But Gail said she had trouble getting other people in cottage grow interested beyond the small group

from whom she had taken blood samples. A lot of people she approached had personal ties to three M. There was more of a hesitancy for those who perhaps worked at three M, those who were involved with family members who worked at three M. If you were outside of this this contamination area, I think there was a reluctance to hold the good neighbor three M accountable. I think there was a reluctance for the community to really accept the fact that that something so wrong had happened so

close to them. One mother I spoke with while reporting the story told me at the time she thought that bringing a class action lawsuit against three M was absurd. Now her ten year old daughter has fought a battle with kidney cancer, and she says she wishes she had taken action earlier. Gayle's class action lawsuit never got off

the ground. A judge dismissed the class action claims around two thousand and seven, but the Minnesota Attorney General, Laurie Swanson had been building a case of her own, and in two thousand and ten she brought what's called a natural resources lawsuit against three M on behalf of the state.

So we value our resources in Minnesota highly. We we value our water, we value our forests, we value our land so much that if you damage that, you're responsible for damages to the natural resources, all right, So it's a little different than water contamination. It's actually Gal's explaining here is that the natural resources lawsuit alleged that damage had been done to the environment, which is different from

accusing three M of harming people. The state's lawsuit alleged that three M should pay to clean up the pi fast chemicals, and that there was damage to drinking water and local fish. Right now, we've got fish advisories in in in some of our lakes where you can't even eat the fish coming out of the lakes because they are so contaminated with pi Fast. Proceedings in the Minnesota case rumbled on for years, but the Jarney General and other state agencies continued to look into the way the

p fast chemicals were impacting Washington County. In May, the Minnesota Department of Health changed its guidelines on acceptable levels of p fast in drinking water. That's when Myron Bailey, the mayor of Cottage Grove, was told the levels of p fast and his city's water exceeded the new guidelines, and the city started looking for ways to bring the levels down below the new threshold. Then, in late seven years after the lawsuit was first filed, Laurie Swanson updated

the case. She asked for five billion dollars from three m She alleged there was an underground plume of the chemicals stretching for over one square miles, and she said it was resulting in real health problems like elevated levels of cancer, leukemia, premature births, and lower fertility. Three M said at the time that the case lacked merit and that it was based on a mistaken belief that the mere presence of the chemical was a harm to human health.

A few months later, in February, literally the night before the Minnesota trial was about to begin, three M reached a settlement with the state. It agreed to pay eight hundred and fifty million dollars without admitting any wrongdoing. Attorney General Laurie Swanson held a press conference the next day. We think that the settlement will help solve a problem from Minnesota. It's been a problem that has been a

long time in the making. For many decades, these chemicals, as I mentioned, were put into the ground, and uh we are very hopeful that the settlement can help fix up. The money in this settlement would be spent on installing filters that would get p fast out of the drinking water for people living in and around three MS Cottage Grove plant. If there was any money left over, they discussed dredging some of the Mississippi River and trying to find a way to bring back non polluted fish for

local anglers. I think the settlement is a very important first step to hold three M accountable for the damage that they did, not only to this state, put this planet because of PFA's exposure. UM. It did not address personal injury actions for the members in the community, So that component of what the chemical now did to the community and the harm that it has caused has yet

to be addressed by that settlement. The Attorney general cannot bring a personal injury like claim on behalf of the citizens, only the individuals can. So the lawsuit had been settled, but that wasn't the end of the issue for three M. Attorney General laur Swanson had one more explosive move to make. She wanted to back up her claim about a cover up. So in February, three M and the States of Minnesota had agreed to an eight hundred and fifty million dollar settlement,

but the Attorney General went a step further. As the settlement was reached, Laurie Swanson posted a trove of three m's internal emails and memos on her website. She posted dozens of documents and I spent a long time going through them together. They're really remarkable. As far back as the nineteen sixties, three M was discussing how to avoid liability from these chemicals, and that's really only the start

of it. Here's Gail again. Early on in the seventies, three M was aware that this chemical did not degrade in the environment and accumulated in the environment. Gail's point that these chemicals never degrade, that's quite a problem. Scientists have said that the chemicals could persist at a geological time scale. It means that almost like rocks, even if dinosaurs roamed the earth again, these man made carbon fluorine

bonds could still be floating around. The documents showed other things too, like the fact that three M had kept secret the locations where it was burying the chemical waste. It had not published some studies, including one that showed lactating goats past the chemicals on to their offspring, and it didn't reveal that some of the company's own employees were suffering from immune dysfunctions. According to an analysis by a Danish scientist, Philippe Grangehn, who studies p fast and

made an expert witness report for the state. And that is significant in the sense that there's a long pattern that this company did research on the harm of this chemical, kept that information from the public um and and chose not to share with with anyone until actually one of their scientists filed a resignation letter to three M and then sent a copy to the e p A that actually shared now what was going on internally with three M and what it knew about the chemicals and what

it was hiding from authorities. Three M declined to comment on the internal memos, except to say that Minnesota had presented them out of context and that they quote portray and incomplete and misleading story and distorts the full record. Previously, though, three M has said that despite decades of medical monitoring, there have been no negative consequences on the health of its own employees. Gail said that the documents were enough to show that three M has not been forthright with

the public about the information it had. It remains to be seen how this legal ordeal will end for three M. The mayor, Myron Bailey, said he was also confused about the way three M kept denying its chemicals were a problem. You know, I was very puzzled with at the beginning of all this with three M and some of the

approaches they took. Spokespeople for three M came out and said, well, we don't believe that the p f c s in the water and Cottage Girl was due to three M. That was due to a big fire that we had at at a plastics plant many years ago. Well, when I when I started hearing that kind of stuff, it actually that made me angry. And so I literally did call their government affairs person at that particular time and said, what are you guys doing? What are you saying? You

know that that is not accurate. It doesn't make sense to me, and it doesn't make sense to the citizens that surround your plant and cottage growth that you would you would say something like that because it doesn't make you look smart. It just it makes you look like you're desperate. After the Minnesota Department of Health released its new peafast guidelines, Myron had to shut off two of the thirteen wells that supplied drinking water to Cottage Grove.

That caused its own small outcry among the residents. There was a watering ban. Since then, Myron says the city has spent between five and six million dollars getting giant new water filters installed. Filter is that, by the way, he says, will only be effective for about five years. The clock is ticking, I guess as the that's way to put it right now, and I want to make sure that our water is is taken care of within

this five year time frame. Myron thinks it could cost as much as a hundred million dollars to permanently secure safe drinking water for cottage growth. The money from three MS eight hundred and fifty million dollars settlements should cover that, but there are still issues like rural wells to deal with and lots of competing demands on that pool of money. Finding conclusive evidence of the health risks associated with these

chemicals is a monumental task. Part of this is because it's one thing to do studies on cells in a lab or even on animals, but it's hard to always be exactly sure of how those findings translate to humans. Minnesota's health department said just before the settlement between three M and the state that it doesn't see evidence of a health problem related to be FAST, but the underlying

data they capture does show some worrying numbers. In Washington County, for example, or Cottage Grove is located breast cancer from nineteen eighty eight to twenty twelve was seven percent higher, and from nineteen ninety nine to twenty thirteen, Washington County had twenty eight percent more cases of chronic lymphacitic leukemia

compared to the rest of Minnesota. To date, personal injury lawsuits in three m's home state haven't had success, but the Minnesota revelations about its internal documents and a success in Ohio courts over one of three MS chemicals have left a bit of a roadmap for other plaintiffs. In the Ohio suit over a du Pont plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, on the Ohio border, they won a six hundred and seventy million dollar settlement on behalf of three thousand,

five hundred plaintiffs. Since Minnesota's settlement, the state of New York has sued three M, and so has the town of Dayton, Ohio, and personal injury lawsuits have been filed against it, mostly in areas around airports or military bases that used firefighting foams with p fas. Three M has never acknowledged doing anything wrong. It says the science is complex, which it is. The federal agency in charge of protecting people from hazardous substances has a draft report on the

toxicity of p FAST. It's eight and fifty two pages long. It outlines problems like weakened immune responses and cancer. It shows how these chemicals prevent cells from communicating with each other, a key factor in forming an immune response. Three M has demanded revisions, saying there aren't enough tests on humans. This spring, the e p A said that it's taking some steps that would help regulate p FAST and even

study toxicity of the newer chemicals. This chemical was never regulated under the Safe Water Drinking Act, by the way, which is why we have a situation like this one in Minnesota where states are trying to come up with their own level which they think is safe in drinking water. So cities and states are left to discover on their own whether people have been exposed to these chemicals. And since the molecules never degrade and have been used around

the world, there are implications for people living everywhere. Back in Cottage Grove, most people have come up with a better safe than sorry approach. A couple of parents I spoke with in Minnesota who had children with cancer say they've thrown out Scotch guard or twitched to bottled water or gotten a strong water filter for their homes. It's the approach I keep hearing scientists say they wish u

S regulators had taken in this situation. Better safe than sorry. Meanwhile, Myron Bailey, the mayor of Cottage Grove, hopes the worst of the situation is behind them thanks to the settlement. The city has funding for new water filters and the temporary water filters are working well in the meantime with the chemicals down to safe levels in the water. And he said relations were better between three M and the people in his community, but there is one thing he's

still waiting for. They have not apologized for anything, so at this point I just kind of took it for again. Unfortunately, in the litigation world right now, everybody you know, admitting guilt seems to be the last thing that anybody ever wants to do, even if it's the right thing to do. And I've never heard them say we're sorry. And that's

it for this week's Decrypted. Thanks for listening. Do you live near a site contaminated with pepass or do you work at a company that's grappling with the use of them in your supply chain? We want to hear your story. You can email us at decrypted at bloomberg dot net or I'm on Twitter Tifiny Kerry and I'm at pagat Cary. If you're a fan of the show, please take a moment to rate and review us. It really helps us find new listeners. This episode was produced by Pea gud

Cary and Liz Smith. Our story editor was Emily Busso. Tiffany also has a big multimedia story about this topic up on bloomberg dot com. You can check it out to learn more about the science and a special thanks on that story to Flynn McRoberts, John Boskell, and Christopher Cannon. Thanks also to brad Stone, Aki Ito and Vandermay and Magnus Henrikson. Francesca Levie, his head of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you next week.