https://www.reuters.com/business/chemical-makers-reach-pfas-related-settlement-us-2023-06-02/?fbclid=IwAR1nOdZOdJ5R9q5TzUjwKXux9jCL02EbfleO1T25Z_d0MiLX-GLheGSaK8o
Tentative agreement would provide $1.18B from Dupont, Chemours, and Corteva. A similar but separate agreement is reported for 3M. 3M deal reported at $10B but unconfirmed.
The agreement requires approval by the judge. Suits consolidated in Federal Court in South Carolina.
"deal with U.S. cities and towns to resolve the PFAS water pollution lawsuits it is facing. "
No details on how the funds will be spent but one would hope water treatment plants across the country will be upgraded to removed PFAs.
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It would be a L-O-N-G and S-L-O-W process, as current systems have not (yet) been scaled (possible?) for high volumes of water.
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Every little town across the country probably has a water treatment plant. Treating all of them is a major undertaking.
You would hope resources are allocated based in the levels of PFAs found and the number of people exposed. Probably not enough money!!
@pauleckler I would venture a guess that the settlement money (on the order of $10 Billion) is a “drop in the bucket” compared with the actual cost of mitigation on the huge scale of water treatment in multiple municipalities across the U.S.
Each municipality would have to hire engineers to study the local situation, design the treatment facility, build and then maintain it with continuing budgets for personnel, capital equipment and consumables for the long term. (I used to work in the field of industrial water treatment. I literally got my hands wet in this area so I have seen the process in the field.)
Who will decide how to divvy up the settlement money? Who will monitor the actual expenditure on mitigating PFAS in water?
Sorry for being cynical, but only a small fraction of tobacco settlement money was spent on actually mitigating the harm of tobacco use.
“This year (fiscal year 2019), the states will collect $27.3 billion in revenue from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 2.4 percent of it – $655 million – on prevention and cessation programs, the report finds.”
I will be willing to bet a quarter that the majority of the PFAS settlement money will wind up being absorbed into general funds.
Wendy
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And as more testing is done, more are likely to be found.
You wonder how much fire fighting foam is out there? But antistick cook ware and anti static textiles are probably everywhere you look. Processing sites probably have highest levels.
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