Everywhere and forever

3M’s potential legal exposure related to PFAS continues to grow after the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe filed a federal lawsuit this week accusing the Minnesota-based company of contaminating its water supplies, jeopardizing the reservation’s natural resources and public health.

A federal judge recently delayed the first trial in the PFAS litigation, known as a bellwether case, as potentially thousands of more plaintiffs file health-related claims against 3M and other companies.

A University of Minnesota professor who helped discover the widespread contamination of PFAS in the environment nearly 25 years ago hopes to expand the university's research to better understand the effects of forever chemicals are having on communities.

The Minnesota Department of Health announced a 10-year plan to protect the state’s drinking water from threats such as PFAS contamination and high levels of nitrates.

A new FOX 9 documentary "Everywhere & Forever: Blood. Water. And the Politics of PFAS." will reveal the inside story of how 3M withheld early research into PFAS contamination and how a state regulatory agency shut down its own research.

In her first interview in nearly 20 years, a former whistleblower at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency details how her early research into forever chemicals was shut down. The FOX 9 Investigators recently interviewed Dr. Fardin Oliaei at her home in Philadelphia as part of a documentary on how the state of Minnesota and the 3M Company responded to PFAS contaminations.

The 3M Company has vowed to stop manufacturing PFAS chemicals by the end of 2025. The FOX 9 Investigators reviewed hundreds of hours of video depositions that shed new light on how company executives and scientists responded after first learning about the widespread contamination.

Concentrations of toxic PFAS chemicals in the east metro’s ground water supply “appear to be slowly increasing" as the contamination plume approaches the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.