3M settles chemical contamination claims for $7.35 billion, while admitting no guilt

3M, which is responsible for widespread groundwater contamination from so-called forever chemicals in the eastern Twin Cities metro, will pay $7.35 billion to settle the vast majority of outstanding personal injury claims against it.

The Minnesota corporate behemoth and a group of plaintiffs’ lawyers announced the settlement on Tuesday. As many as 120,000 people who say they were injured by PFAS and similar chemicals in firefighting foam, drinking water and other sources could be eligible for compensation under the agreement.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers said the settlement was a long time in coming.

“For the thousands of victims who have sought answers and accountability for nearly a decade, 3M’s $7.35 billion settlement is welcome news” and a “favorable result for victims who are in urgent need of support to cover the mounting medical bills and other costs frequently associated with toxic PFAS exposure,” attorneys Fred Thompson and David Hoyle said in a joint statement. Both are partners with Motley Rice, a South Carolina law firm.

The settlement, valued at $5.8 billion for accounting purposes, “addresses approximately 99% of current personal injury claims” related to PFAS, 3M said. Payouts will come over nine years, with the bulk arriving from 2028 to 2033.

As is common in negotiated settlements, the agreement includes no admission of wrongdoing from 3M. The company “is prepared to continue to defend itself in litigation” if the settlement falls apart, it said in a securities filing Tuesday.

The settlement nonetheless resolves a significant source of uncertainty that has dogged Maplewood-based 3M for more than a decade. 3M’s stock price rose about 10% on Wednesday, the first day of trading after the announcement.

William Brown, 3M’s chairman and CEO, said in a prepared statement that the agreement was “a significant milestone for 3M and substantially reduces litigation uncertainty.”

Like international oil companies that knew about the planet-warming effects of their products for decades before admitting the connection, 3M and fellow chemicals giant DuPont were aware as far back as the 1950s that PFAS compounds from their products were accumulating in human and animal tissues, according to internal company documents reviewed by the Reformer in 2022. 

But state and federal environmental regulators didn’t begin actively investigating the connection until 1999, when a 3M toxicologist resigned in protest and alerted the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration.

The following year, 3M said it would voluntarily phase out some PFAS compounds in its products. As of 2025, it no longer manufactures any PFAS compounds anywhere in the world — though forever chemicals from products previously produced by 3M and other industrial companies will remain in the environment, and people, for the foreseeable future. 

PFAS compounds are or were once found in an array of consumer and industrial products, including nonstick coatings, food packaging, dental floss and firefighting foam. They are useful because they are resistant to heat, oil, stains, grease and water. 

In 2023, 3M announced a sweeping $10.3 billion settlement with U.S. public water suppliers to fund present and future PFAS remediation “at any level” in drinking water systems and to support nationwide PFAS testing in clean water supplies. This year, it reached a separate, $450 million agreement with the state of New Jersey to remediate PFAS groundwater contamination there.

Several Minnesota cities, including Lake Elmo and Hastings, have discovered PFAS in drinking water wells since the early 2000s. 

In 2010, then-Attorney General Lori Swanson sued 3M, alleging the company harmed Minnesotans by dumping the chemicals in the east metro. The state and the company eventually settled for $850 million for east metro water supplies. 

The Legislature enacted some of the nation’s tightest regulations on PFAS in 2023, including a law named after Amara Strande, a young advocate who died of a rare cancer she suspected was caused by PFAS exposure. As one graduate of Tartan High School told the Reformer in 2022, Oakdale — where 3M dumped PFAS into unlined pits until 1959 — featured the nerds, the jocks and “the cancer kids.” 

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has found PFAS in surface water and fish tissue in Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota lakes, too. And a citizen analysis of contaminant testing by MPCA and other state agencies points to significant potential gaps in fish-tissue testing statewide, the Reformer first reported last month.

PFAS compounds’ infamous durability means the issue is unlikely to go away soon, even if most of the active claims against 3M appear to be resolved. The company’s settlement announcement describes the resolved complaints as “legacy claims,” and the agreement’s fine print includes a $680 million reserve fund for future claims. 

It also anticipates a court order “establishing evidentiary and timing requirements for plaintiffs who may seek to litigate in the future.”