PFAS in our drinking water: the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says the forever chemicals are in twenty-two water systems, in seventeen cities.

“We certainly have concerns about the PFAS that has spread over the past seventy years throughout parts of the east metro,” says MPCA hydrologist Rebecca Higgins. “We have concerns about that spreading in the future.”

“The U.S. EPA has made a determination these are much more dangerous chemicals than they thought before,” adds geologist Jeff Broberg.

Much of the contamination has been linked to 3M, which is paying out billions of dollars to help clean it up.

Now — for the first time, the MPCA is sharing how a PFAS plume is spreading in the east metro.

A rough map outlines where the chemicals are heading in the coming decades, from the St. Croix River to the east, drifting toward Woodbury and Afton to the south, Lake Elmo to the north, and Maplewood to the west.

Broberg says it’s not a small problem.

“The news today is that the plume is much bigger than they have announced before, so that puts more people in the footprint,” he notes. “It’s not gallons, it’s acre-feet or even cubic miles in this instance of water that’s contaminated.”

But what to do?

On Friday, the agency unveiled what’s called a ‘managed aquifer recharge’ plan — one that would involve digging a series of twenty-seven wells to contain the plume.

Eighteen of them would draw up tainted water, which would be piped to a treatment facility, while nine others would inject clean water back underground.

“This is a way to help reduce the spread of PFAS throughout the region,” Higgins explains. “So, it would be treated for any impacts of PFAS — and then any excess that we don’t necessarily need for municipal water supplies would be put back into the aquifers to maintain safe groundwater elevations.”

Right now, the plan is only on paper — there’s no timeline or budget yet.

“This will be by far and away the largest attempt of capturing a contaminated water plume in Minnesota,” Broberg says. “Maybe in the Midwest.”

Meanwhile — Woodbury is on that list of cities that have PFAS levels above the EPA’s new safety standard of four parts per trillion.

Experts say one part per trillion is equal to one gallon of contaminant per trillion gallons of water.

The city is spending millions to deal with forever chemicals in the community.  

“The PFAS is concerning in the groundwater structure underneath the east metro,” notes Public Works Director Mary Van Milligen. “In Woodbury, we’re really prepared to deal with it in our drinking water.”

Those preparations include an $11 million temporary treatment plant, designed to filter out PFAS to safe levels in some of the city wells.

City leaders are also working on plans for a $19 million, two-million-gallon water tower, and a $400 million permanent water treatment plant.

Most of the cost of those projects will be paid through the 3M settlement fund, Van Milligen says.

The city is also exploring the use of bonds, sales tax exemptions, or a likely water rate increase for funding.  

But Van Milligen warns that untreated water may have to be used during high-use summer months.

“We will have to operationally bring in wells with PFAS on occasion to meet the water demand, when water is really high,” she explains. “We can’t test for what’s going out the tap, we can only test what’s here at our plant and our well heads. But it will be co-mingled with water that is zero, non-detect.”

Health experts say long-term exposure to PFAS chemicals has been linked to some cancers, pregnancy complications, and high cholesterol issues.

Broberg says people in the affected communities should consider taking precautions when consuming water that may be tainted with PFAS — including the use of reverse osmosis or other filters at home.  

“If you continue to drink this water, you’re experimenting with your own body and gambling about whether you can get a preventable disease,” he says. “So, residents should be looking at activated carbon filters to protect themselves and their families.”