Speaker 1: Cottage Grove, Minnesota, is a quiet community with nicely kept
Speaker 1: streets full of large, single family homes. It's a suburb
Speaker 1: of Minneapolis St. Paul, not far from the global headquarters
Speaker 1: of three M, the company that makes Scotch, guard, post
Speaker 1: It notes, and thousands of other products. It's got a
Speaker 1: real small town atmosphere, real good feel to it. And
Speaker 1: that's Myron Bailey, the city's mayor. He's just like Bob Newby,
Speaker 1: the radio Shack guy on the Show's Stranger Things. He's
Speaker 1: the guy next door who wants to help, a bit
Speaker 1: of an unsung hero, and he actually has worked at
Speaker 1: Radio Shack while being mayor. Cottage Grove has also experienced
Speaker 1: some really strange events this year since three M has
Speaker 1: had a factory here along the Mississippi River, and in May,
Speaker 1: three MS passed caught up with Cottage Grove. At the time,
Speaker 1: I was in Las Vegas at a convention marketing our
Speaker 1: city when our city administrator received the call. The call
Speaker 1: was from the Minnesota State Health Department. The agency was
Speaker 1: about to make an announcement that would affect Cottage Grow directly.
Speaker 1: It was rolling out new guidelines lowering the acceptable levels
Speaker 1: of a certain type of chemical in the drinking water.
Speaker 1: It said there was no emergency. The change was just
Speaker 1: to protect infants and children. Myron had known for years
Speaker 1: that certain chemicals called p fas or p f a
Speaker 1: s were made and used at the three M factory.
Speaker 1: He knew they were present in the city's drinking water,
Speaker 1: but recently news stories have been reporting more information about
Speaker 1: links to health issues like weakened immune responses, high cholesterol,
Speaker 1: thyroid disease, and cancer. So we ended up having to
Speaker 1: declare a state of emergency, and we did that right
Speaker 1: after the announcement. Myron recalled how concerned some residents were
Speaker 1: when the news broke. There were some that were, you know,
Speaker 1: screaming that you know, Cottage Grove is any what they
Speaker 1: used to I guess like to call a cancer cluster.
Speaker 1: I've had moms and dad's called me crying because they
Speaker 1: were concerned about the health of their their children or
Speaker 1: their unborn baby. At the time, this was the beginning
Speaker 1: of a long journey for Myron and his town, because
Speaker 1: it turns out the chemicals aren't just in the water
Speaker 1: in Cottage Grove. The chemicals are pretty much everywhere, and
Speaker 1: they'll likely be around forever. Hi, I'm Kiaga Kari and
Speaker 1: I'm Tiffany Carrey. And this week on Decrypted, we're exploring
Speaker 1: the dire unintended consequences of a group of chemicals that
Speaker 1: have contaminated America's drinking water. They were once seen as
Speaker 1: dazzling innovations. Now scientific studies show that could be serious
Speaker 1: health consequences, but people exposed to them even in minute quantities.
Speaker 1: In February, three M reached an eight hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars settlement with the State of Minnesota about the issue. Afterward,
Speaker 1: the state Attorney General published some of the information she
Speaker 1: had gathered during the case, seeing the company had known
Speaker 1: about the risks for decades and the public had a
Speaker 1: right to know. A spokesperson for three M says the
Speaker 1: chemicals aren't a danger to public health and that the
Speaker 1: company has long been committed to researching the substances. Three
Speaker 1: M also says the internal memos are a small set
Speaker 1: of documents that quote portray and incomplete and misleading story
Speaker 1: and distorts the full record of three m's work. It
Speaker 1: also distorts quote who we are as a company. But
Speaker 1: now those documents create a bit of a roadmap for
Speaker 1: other people who have since filed lawsuits. So even though
Speaker 1: the States lawsuit is settled, it's not the end of
Speaker 1: the story. Three M declined to comment on any pending litigation.
Speaker 1: Stay with us. We're focusing today's story on Cottage Grove
Speaker 1: because it's one of the communities that's exposed to these
Speaker 1: chemicals the longest. But if you look at drinking water statistics,
Speaker 1: Cottage Grove has something in common with dozens of other
Speaker 1: towns around the country, a third of the US population.
Speaker 1: In fact, you just heard us refer to the chemicals
Speaker 1: as p FAST, but they've gone by lots of other
Speaker 1: names too, p f c s or fcs or flora carbons.
Speaker 1: They're all one group of chemicals, and it's estimated there
Speaker 1: are three thousand to five thousand variations of them. From
Speaker 1: here on, will refer to them as p fasts. And
Speaker 1: the key thing about them is these chemicals are man made.
Speaker 1: They involved carbon fluorine bonds, and they don't occur in nature.
Speaker 1: This is technology at the molecular level. The chemicals were
Speaker 1: developed in the nineteen forties and their ability to separate
Speaker 1: out uranium helped create the atomic bomb. After the Second
Speaker 1: World War, three M acquired the patent. From then it
Speaker 1: got into three MS products and those made by other companies,
Speaker 1: things like firefighting foams, packaging for greasy fast food, and
Speaker 1: outdoor gear like jack It's intense. It also sold the
Speaker 1: chemicals to other companies like DuPont, which used them in
Speaker 1: teflon manufacturing. Some varieties were phased out by three M
Speaker 1: by two and two, and then it started making new varieties.
Speaker 1: Some scientists have said they don't linger as long in
Speaker 1: the human body, but there are still concerns. Today they're
Speaker 1: used in the tech industry, in electronics manufacturing and many
Speaker 1: other places to make smooth surfaces. It's not entirely clear
Speaker 1: how many things PU fast is in electronics manufacturing and
Speaker 1: mining fluids have come up. The planting Cottage Grove makes
Speaker 1: everything from post it notes to Scotch tape, to reflective
Speaker 1: road signs and the smooth finish on golf clubs. Here's
Speaker 1: Myron again. M has got a very large facility here
Speaker 1: in Cottage Growth. UM They employ I believe now it's
Speaker 1: over a thousand people in their facility here. They do
Speaker 1: more than just dealing with chemicals. They do technology, They
Speaker 1: do a variety of other things. UM so they're very
Speaker 1: I guess you'd say very vested in the community. Myron
Speaker 1: has lived in Cottage Grove all his life, and he's
Speaker 1: drank the water and says he's fine. But he's told
Speaker 1: me there's been a fear in the community, a fear
Speaker 1: that cancer was caused by the drinking water. We knew
Speaker 1: something was up. They knew something was up way back
Speaker 1: when this kind of ball began. In fact, more than
Speaker 1: a decade ago, a local lawyer named Gail Pearson was
Speaker 1: one of the first people to look into the matter.
Speaker 1: Gail is someone who would be considered Minnesota nice all
Speaker 1: the way. She said that back in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: she had been contacted by some lawyers working on a
Speaker 1: personal injury case in West Virginia. It was a case
Speaker 1: about chemicals in the water near a plant that made teflon.
Speaker 1: Back then it was a DuPont plant, but now it's
Speaker 1: owned by their spinoff. Mrs Gail realized that one of
Speaker 1: the chemicals was p f o A, a type of
Speaker 1: p fasts that had been made by three m in
Speaker 1: Cottage Grove. She started looking into it, and actually I
Speaker 1: went online and saw a lot of information from the
Speaker 1: environmental working group and started to learn about pi FoST
Speaker 1: and it's contamination not only in Washington County or West Virginia,
Speaker 1: but actually in the world. I realized this is a
Speaker 1: really important issue and and I had to get involved.
Speaker 1: Washington County is the larger area where Cottage Grove is located,
Speaker 1: back when it was mostly farmland. Three m had don't
Speaker 1: waste there and in three other towns nearby. We wanted
Speaker 1: ourselves to to investigate what the science was saying about
Speaker 1: the soil and the water in the area. So we
Speaker 1: actually hired our own chemists, and we asked folks around
Speaker 1: the dump areas if we could come on their property
Speaker 1: and test their soil samples and test their water. Along
Speaker 1: the way, we someone asked the question, what about what
Speaker 1: about the people living in this area? Where would they
Speaker 1: be contaminated? So we that led Gale to start asking
Speaker 1: people if they would allow her to test their blood
Speaker 1: to see if this chemical post was present. And as
Speaker 1: the information was coming back from the laboratory, we realized
Speaker 1: that we add a hotbed of contamination in the blood
Speaker 1: of the community. And I don't believe that the Minnesota
Speaker 1: Pollution Control Agency or the Department of Health was testing
Speaker 1: human serum samples at that time. I think we were
Speaker 1: the first group that we're doing this. Gail said she
Speaker 1: learned a few things from those tests, but the most
Speaker 1: striking discovery was that the concentration of the chemicals seemed
Speaker 1: to be highest in children and the elderly. She passed
Speaker 1: the information on to the Minnesota Department of Health and
Speaker 1: to the state Attorney General's office. She also started building
Speaker 1: a class action case against three M. The individuals that
Speaker 1: we actually tested and were involved and felt very strongly
Speaker 1: that three M had not been a good neighbor, had
Speaker 1: really violated their person, their property, and really needed to
Speaker 1: be held accountable. But Gail said she had trouble getting
Speaker 1: other people in cottage grow interested beyond the small group
Speaker 1: from whom she had taken blood samples. A lot of
Speaker 1: people she approached had personal ties to three M. There
Speaker 1: was more of a hesitancy for those who perhaps worked
Speaker 1: at three M, those who were involved with family members
Speaker 1: who worked at three M. If you were outside of
Speaker 1: this this contamination area, I think there was a reluctance
Speaker 1: to hold the good neighbor three M accountable. I think
Speaker 1: there was a reluctance for the community to really accept
Speaker 1: the fact that that something so wrong had happened so
Speaker 1: close to them. One mother I spoke with while reporting
Speaker 1: the story told me at the time she thought that
Speaker 1: bringing a class action lawsuit against three M was absurd.
Speaker 1: Now her ten year old daughter has fought a battle
Speaker 1: with kidney cancer, and she says she wishes she had
Speaker 1: taken action earlier. Gayle's class action lawsuit never got off
Speaker 1: the ground. A judge dismissed the class action claims around
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, but the Minnesota Attorney General, Laurie
Speaker 1: Swanson had been building a case of her own, and
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten she brought what's called a
Speaker 1: natural resources lawsuit against three M on behalf of the state.
Speaker 1: So we value our resources in Minnesota highly. We we
Speaker 1: value our water, we value our forests, we value our
Speaker 1: land so much that if you damage that, you're responsible
Speaker 1: for damages to the natural resources, all right, So it's
Speaker 1: a little different than water contamination. It's actually Gal's explaining
Speaker 1: here is that the natural resources lawsuit alleged that damage
Speaker 1: had been done to the environment, which is different from
Speaker 1: accusing three M of harming people. The state's lawsuit alleged
Speaker 1: that three M should pay to clean up the pi
Speaker 1: fast chemicals, and that there was damage to drinking water
Speaker 1: and local fish. Right now, we've got fish advisories in
Speaker 1: in in some of our lakes where you can't even
Speaker 1: eat the fish coming out of the lakes because they
Speaker 1: are so contaminated with pi Fast. Proceedings in the Minnesota
Speaker 1: case rumbled on for years, but the Jarney General and
Speaker 1: other state agencies continued to look into the way the
Speaker 1: p fast chemicals were impacting Washington County. In May, the
Speaker 1: Minnesota Department of Health changed its guidelines on acceptable levels
Speaker 1: of p fast in drinking water. That's when Myron Bailey,
Speaker 1: the mayor of Cottage Grove, was told the levels of
Speaker 1: p fast and his city's water exceeded the new guidelines,
Speaker 1: and the city started looking for ways to bring the
Speaker 1: levels down below the new threshold. Then, in late seven
Speaker 1: years after the lawsuit was first filed, Laurie Swanson updated
Speaker 1: the case. She asked for five billion dollars from three
Speaker 1: m She alleged there was an underground plume of the
Speaker 1: chemicals stretching for over one square miles, and she said
Speaker 1: it was resulting in real health problems like elevated levels
Speaker 1: of cancer, leukemia, premature births, and lower fertility. Three M
Speaker 1: said at the time that the case lacked merit and
Speaker 1: that it was based on a mistaken belief that the
Speaker 1: mere presence of the chemical was a harm to human health.
Speaker 1: A few months later, in February, literally the night before
Speaker 1: the Minnesota trial was about to begin, three M reached
Speaker 1: a settlement with the state. It agreed to pay eight
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars without admitting any wrongdoing. Attorney
Speaker 1: General Laurie Swanson held a press conference the next day.
Speaker 1: We think that the settlement will help solve a problem
Speaker 1: from Minnesota. It's been a problem that has been a
Speaker 1: long time in the making. For many decades, these chemicals,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, were put into the ground, and uh
Speaker 1: we are very hopeful that the settlement can help fix up.
Speaker 1: The money in this settlement would be spent on installing
Speaker 1: filters that would get p fast out of the drinking
Speaker 1: water for people living in and around three MS Cottage
Speaker 1: Grove plant. If there was any money left over, they
Speaker 1: discussed dredging some of the Mississippi River and trying to
Speaker 1: find a way to bring back non polluted fish for
Speaker 1: local anglers. I think the settlement is a very important
Speaker 1: first step to hold three M accountable for the damage
Speaker 1: that they did, not only to this state, put this
Speaker 1: planet because of PFA's exposure. UM. It did not address
Speaker 1: personal injury actions for the members in the community, So
Speaker 1: that component of what the chemical now did to the
Speaker 1: community and the harm that it has caused has yet
Speaker 1: to be addressed by that settlement. The Attorney general cannot
Speaker 1: bring a personal injury like claim on behalf of the citizens,
Speaker 1: only the individuals can. So the lawsuit had been settled,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't the end of the issue for three M.
Speaker 1: Attorney General laur Swanson had one more explosive move to make.
Speaker 1: She wanted to back up her claim about a cover up.
Speaker 1: So in February, three M and the States of Minnesota
Speaker 1: had agreed to an eight hundred and fifty million dollar settlement,
Speaker 1: but the Attorney General went a step further. As the
Speaker 1: settlement was reached, Laurie Swanson posted a trove of three
Speaker 1: m's internal emails and memos on her website. She posted
Speaker 1: dozens of documents and I spent a long time going
Speaker 1: through them together. They're really remarkable. As far back as
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, three M was discussing how to avoid
Speaker 1: liability from these chemicals, and that's really only the start
Speaker 1: of it. Here's Gail again. Early on in the seventies,
Speaker 1: three M was aware that this chemical did not degrade
Speaker 1: in the environment and accumulated in the environment. Gail's point
Speaker 1: that these chemicals never degrade, that's quite a problem. Scientists
Speaker 1: have said that the chemicals could persist at a geological
Speaker 1: time scale. It means that almost like rocks, even if
Speaker 1: dinosaurs roamed the earth again, these man made carbon fluorine
Speaker 1: bonds could still be floating around. The documents showed other
Speaker 1: things too, like the fact that three M had kept
Speaker 1: secret the locations where it was burying the chemical waste.
Speaker 1: It had not published some studies, including one that showed
Speaker 1: lactating goats past the chemicals on to their offspring, and
Speaker 1: it didn't reveal that some of the company's own employees
Speaker 1: were suffering from immune dysfunctions. According to an analysis by
Speaker 1: a Danish scientist, Philippe Grangehn, who studies p fast and
Speaker 1: made an expert witness report for the state. And that
Speaker 1: is significant in the sense that there's a long pattern
Speaker 1: that this company did research on the harm of this chemical,
Speaker 1: kept that information from the public um and and chose
Speaker 1: not to share with with anyone until actually one of
Speaker 1: their scientists filed a resignation letter to three M and
Speaker 1: then sent a copy to the e p A that
Speaker 1: actually shared now what was going on internally with three
Speaker 1: M and what it knew about the chemicals and what
Speaker 1: it was hiding from authorities. Three M declined to comment
Speaker 1: on the internal memos, except to say that Minnesota had
Speaker 1: presented them out of context and that they quote portray
Speaker 1: and incomplete and misleading story and distorts the full record. Previously, though,
Speaker 1: three M has said that despite decades of medical monitoring,
Speaker 1: there have been no negative consequences on the health of
Speaker 1: its own employees. Gail said that the documents were enough
Speaker 1: to show that three M has not been forthright with
Speaker 1: the public about the information it had. It remains to
Speaker 1: be seen how this legal ordeal will end for three M.
Speaker 1: The mayor, Myron Bailey, said he was also confused about
Speaker 1: the way three M kept denying its chemicals were a problem.
Speaker 1: You know, I was very puzzled with at the beginning
Speaker 1: of all this with three M and some of the
Speaker 1: approaches they took. Spokespeople for three M came out and said, well,
Speaker 1: we don't believe that the p f c s in
Speaker 1: the water and Cottage Girl was due to three M.
Speaker 1: That was due to a big fire that we had
Speaker 1: at at a plastics plant many years ago. Well, when
Speaker 1: I when I started hearing that kind of stuff, it
Speaker 1: actually that made me angry. And so I literally did
Speaker 1: call their government affairs person at that particular time and said,
Speaker 1: what are you guys doing? What are you saying? You
Speaker 1: know that that is not accurate. It doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to me, and it doesn't make sense to the citizens
Speaker 1: that surround your plant and cottage growth that you would
Speaker 1: you would say something like that because it doesn't make
Speaker 1: you look smart. It just it makes you look like
Speaker 1: you're desperate. After the Minnesota Department of Health released its
Speaker 1: new peafast guidelines, Myron had to shut off two of
Speaker 1: the thirteen wells that supplied drinking water to Cottage Grove.
Speaker 1: That caused its own small outcry among the residents. There
Speaker 1: was a watering ban. Since then, Myron says the city
Speaker 1: has spent between five and six million dollars getting giant
Speaker 1: new water filters installed. Filter is that, by the way,
Speaker 1: he says, will only be effective for about five years.
Speaker 1: The clock is ticking, I guess as the that's way
Speaker 1: to put it right now, and I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that our water is is taken care of within
Speaker 1: this five year time frame. Myron thinks it could cost
Speaker 1: as much as a hundred million dollars to permanently secure
Speaker 1: safe drinking water for cottage growth. The money from three
Speaker 1: MS eight hundred and fifty million dollars settlements should cover that,
Speaker 1: but there are still issues like rural wells to deal
Speaker 1: with and lots of competing demands on that pool of money.
Speaker 1: Finding conclusive evidence of the health risks associated with these
Speaker 1: chemicals is a monumental task. Part of this is because
Speaker 1: it's one thing to do studies on cells in a
Speaker 1: lab or even on animals, but it's hard to always
Speaker 1: be exactly sure of how those findings translate to humans.
Speaker 1: Minnesota's health department said just before the settlement between three
Speaker 1: M and the state that it doesn't see evidence of
Speaker 1: a health problem related to be FAST, but the underlying
Speaker 1: data they capture does show some worrying numbers. In Washington County,
Speaker 1: for example, or Cottage Grove is located breast cancer from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight to twenty twelve was seven percent higher,
Speaker 1: and from nineteen ninety nine to twenty thirteen, Washington County
Speaker 1: had twenty eight percent more cases of chronic lymphacitic leukemia
Speaker 1: compared to the rest of Minnesota. To date, personal injury
Speaker 1: lawsuits in three m's home state haven't had success, but
Speaker 1: the Minnesota revelations about its internal documents and a success
Speaker 1: in Ohio courts over one of three MS chemicals have
Speaker 1: left a bit of a roadmap for other plaintiffs. In
Speaker 1: the Ohio suit over a du Pont plant in Parkersburg,
Speaker 1: West Virginia, on the Ohio border, they won a six
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy million dollar settlement on behalf of three thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred plaintiffs. Since Minnesota's settlement, the state of New
Speaker 1: York has sued three M, and so has the town
Speaker 1: of Dayton, Ohio, and personal injury lawsuits have been filed
Speaker 1: against it, mostly in areas around airports or military bases
Speaker 1: that used firefighting foams with p fas. Three M has
Speaker 1: never acknowledged doing anything wrong. It says the science is complex,
Speaker 1: which it is. The federal agency in charge of protecting
Speaker 1: people from hazardous substances has a draft report on the
Speaker 1: toxicity of p FAST. It's eight and fifty two pages long.
Speaker 1: It outlines problems like weakened immune responses and cancer. It
Speaker 1: shows how these chemicals prevent cells from communicating with each other,
Speaker 1: a key factor in forming an immune response. Three M
Speaker 1: has demanded revisions, saying there aren't enough tests on humans.
Speaker 1: This spring, the e p A said that it's taking
Speaker 1: some steps that would help regulate p FAST and even
Speaker 1: study toxicity of the newer chemicals. This chemical was never
Speaker 1: regulated under the Safe Water Drinking Act, by the way,
Speaker 1: which is why we have a situation like this one
Speaker 1: in Minnesota where states are trying to come up with
Speaker 1: their own level which they think is safe in drinking water.
Speaker 1: So cities and states are left to discover on their
Speaker 1: own whether people have been exposed to these chemicals. And
Speaker 1: since the molecules never degrade and have been used around
Speaker 1: the world, there are implications for people living everywhere. Back
Speaker 1: in Cottage Grove, most people have come up with a
Speaker 1: better safe than sorry approach. A couple of parents I
Speaker 1: spoke with in Minnesota who had children with cancer say
Speaker 1: they've thrown out Scotch guard or twitched to bottled water
Speaker 1: or gotten a strong water filter for their homes. It's
Speaker 1: the approach I keep hearing scientists say they wish u
Speaker 1: S regulators had taken in this situation. Better safe than sorry. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Myron Bailey, the mayor of Cottage Grove, hopes the worst
Speaker 1: of the situation is behind them thanks to the settlement.
Speaker 1: The city has funding for new water filters and the
Speaker 1: temporary water filters are working well in the meantime with
Speaker 1: the chemicals down to safe levels in the water. And
Speaker 1: he said relations were better between three M and the
Speaker 1: people in his community, but there is one thing he's
Speaker 1: still waiting for. They have not apologized for anything, so
Speaker 1: at this point I just kind of took it for again. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in the litigation world right now, everybody you know, admitting
Speaker 1: guilt seems to be the last thing that anybody ever
Speaker 1: wants to do, even if it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: And I've never heard them say we're sorry. And that's
Speaker 1: it for this week's Decrypted. Thanks for listening. Do you
Speaker 1: live near a site contaminated with pepass or do you
Speaker 1: work at a company that's grappling with the use of
Speaker 1: them in your supply chain? We want to hear your story.
Speaker 1: You can email us at decrypted at bloomberg dot net
Speaker 1: or I'm on Twitter Tifiny Kerry and I'm at pagat Cary.
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of the show, please take a
Speaker 1: moment to rate and review us. It really helps us
Speaker 1: find new listeners. This episode was produced by Pea gud
Speaker 1: Cary and Liz Smith. Our story editor was Emily Busso.
Speaker 1: Tiffany also has a big multimedia story about this topic
Speaker 1: up on bloomberg dot com. You can check it out
Speaker 1: to learn more about the science and a special thanks
Speaker 1: on that story to Flynn McRoberts, John Boskell, and Christopher Cannon.
Speaker 1: Thanks also to brad Stone, Aki Ito and Vandermay and
Speaker 1: Magnus Henrikson. Francesca Levie, his head of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next week.