Are PFAS polluters starting to see the writing on the wall?

Don’t count on it.

Late this week, news outlets reported that 3M struck a “tentative” deal to head off court action in Charleston, South Carolina for $10B to settle claims of their toxic PFAS chemicals polluted drinking water — a deal that would link 4,000 PFAS-linked lawsuits against 3M. However, this would only be a portion of their estimated $143B in liability for the cleanup actions — a sum that is more than twice the company’s market capitalization.

At the same time, news outlets reported another deal inked between 3M, DuPont, and Corteva to set aside $1.19 billion to resolve “PFAS-related drinking water claims. Don’t give them too much credit though because the deal “does not include claims of personal injury due to alleged exposure to PFAS or claims by State Attorneys General that alleged PFAS contamination has damaged the State’s natural resources.”

This has been a long time coming. The documentary “The Devil We Know,” the film “Dark Waters” starring Mark Ruffalo (who played famed attorney Rob Bilott) detailed how DuPont and other PFAS manufacturers knew by 1970 that PFAS chemicals are “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested.” The authors of a recent paper concluded that the industry employed tactics used by the tobacco, pharmaceutical, and other industries to influence science and regulation — “most notably, suppressing unfavorable research and distorting public discourse.”