Forever chemicals run through the water supply in Hastings, and city Public Works Director Ryan Stempski believes he knows why.
“I can throw a football over to 3M Cottage Grove,” he said.
That short distance — and the river separating Hastings from several 3M plants — has been an obstacle to accessing millions of dollars to help pay for treatment plants needed to purge per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from Hastings’ drinking water.
Woodbury, Cottage Grove and a cluster of east metro cities are receiving millions from 3M to scrub those forever chemicals — synthetic substances linked to certain cancers — from their water. The municipalities’ proximity to company plants that for decades produced toxic chemicals made the areas immediately eligible for money from a massive settlement 3M reached with Minnesota over PFAS contamination in 2018.
But for Hastings to secure settlement money, officials needed to nail down a link between forever chemicals in the city’s water supply and the same substances produced at a 3M facility — like the one in Cottage Grove about nine miles away.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency recognized a link in one city well last fall, making Hastings eligible for roughly $14 million from 3M.
That’s a start, but it’s not enough. The city is still short $45.7 million for a trio of treatment plants costing an estimated $68.9 million.
The Environmental Protection Agency increased the pressure on Hastings to confront its PFAS problem when the agency announced public water systems had to scrub forever chemicals from their supply within five years. That forced the city to recently impose a 10% water rate hike on residents.