Woodbury breaks ground on $330 million water treatment plant

With a ceremonial groundbreaking on Thursday afternoon, the city of Woodbury began construction of its $330 million water treatment plant to scrub city water of PFAS chemicals.

It’s the city’s largest capital improvement project, and the plant when completed and turned on in 2028 will be the largest of its kind in Minnesota, capable of cleaning 32 million gallons of water daily.

“We are dedicated to ensuring that we provide clean drinking water to our community for now and for generations to come,” Mayor Anne Burt said, speaking to a group of city staff, elected officials and others at the M Health Fairview Sports Center fieldhouse, where officials gathered for a ceremony and speeches after the nearby groundbreaking.

The new plant will be located at Hargis Parkway east of Radio Drive, adjacent to East Ridge High School.

The city expects to pay roughly 10% of the plant’s cost, said Jim Westerman, assistant public works director. The remainder will be covered by the $850 million settlement 3M reached with the state of Minnesota in 2018 for the contamination of groundwater under the east metro.

Originally estimated to cost up to $400 million, the plant’s total cost came in lower because of competitive bidding, Westerman said.

The plant will require 17 miles of new pipelines to connect the city’s wells. Installation of those pipelines began in August and will continue over the next four years along existing roads.

A temporary treatment plant opened in 2020 continues to scrub groundwater at nine city wells that have levels of PFAS above state health department guidelines. Once the new plant comes online, the temporary plant will be shuttered and its equipment will be either moved to the new plant or auctioned off, Westerman said.

The PFAS contamination itself will be pulled from the groundwater and then trucked to a treatment plant out of state to be burned in a process that breaks down the chemical bonds of the PFAS chemicals.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who spoke at Thursday’s groundbreaking, said efforts are underway to find new methods to dispose of PFAS that don’t require burying or burning it.

“This is going to be a multigenerational issue as we clean up PFAS,” said McCollum, a Democrat who represents the area.

Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down in the environment, the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances found in the east metro’s groundwater are used in a broad array of manufactured goods.

The state’s first steps in banning PFAS begin next year when Amara’s Law goes into effect. The law, which takes effect in stages between 2025 and 2032, bans the sale of products with intentionally added PFAS. The law is named for Oakdale resident Amara Strande, who died of a rare liver cancer last year that her family strongly believes was caused by high levels of PFAS in Oakdale’s water supply. She was 20 years old.