The City of Hastings, Minnesota, has filed a lawsuit against 3M Company in Dakota County District Court, alleging that the manufacturer’s former production of the chemical PFOA at its Cottage Grove facility contaminated five of the city’s public drinking water wells.
The complaint, filed on 26 August 2026 under case number 19HA CV 26 5694, names wells 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 as containing PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) at levels above the maximum contaminant level of 4 parts per trillion that the US Environmental Protection Agency set for the chemical in April 2024. That standard, which the Trump administration confirmed it would retain in May 2025, is mandatory for public water systems, including those operated by Hastings.
According to the complaint, Hastings owns and operates the wells, which supply drinking water to around 23,000 residents through more than 7,500 public water customers. The city says it is in the process of building three water treatment plants, using granular activated carbon filters, to remove PFOA from the affected wells. It expects the central facility, planned for 1290 North Frontage Road, to be completed around spring 2027, with all three plants finished within the following few years. Hastings puts the total design and construction cost at tens of millions of dollars, with annual operation and maintenance costs of at least hundreds of thousands of dollars expected to continue for many years.
PFOA is a synthetic chemical that does not occur naturally and is often referred to as a forever chemical because it resists breaking down in the environment. The complaint cites human epidemiological studies, including some relied upon by the EPA, that have found associations between PFOA exposure and conditions such as kidney and testicular cancers, high cholesterol, thyroid disorders and pregnancy-related hypertension.
According to the complaint, Hastings owns and operates the wells, which supply drinking water to around 23,000 residents through more than 7,500 public water customers
Hastings alleges that 3M manufactured PFOA and PFOA-based products at a dedicated portion of its Cottage Grove facility from the 1940s until 2002, and was the only US manufacturer of the chemical for most of that period. The complaint states that 3M reported making a total of about 2.52 million pounds of finished PFOA goods at the site between 1976 and 1998 alone, and that the company lacked air emission controls to capture PFOA releases for many decades of that production.
The lawsuit alleges that PFOA released through air emissions from Cottage Grove settled onto soils and then leached into groundwater feeding Hastings’ wells, which sit several miles southeast of the plant, on the opposite side of the Mississippi River. Hastings points to a prevailing wind pattern running from the northwest to the southeast, a pattern it says 3M itself identified in a 2025 report on air emissions at the site. The complaint also cites 3M’s own analysis of the chemical composition of the PFOA found in Hastings’ wells, which it says matches the specific mix of isomers that only 3M produced in the United States.
The complaint quotes several past public statements by 3M concerning the contamination. It cites a 2024 statement in which the company said that “to date any connection between the PFOA detected at Hastings and 3M’s Cottage Grove facility has not been sufficiently established,” and further statements describing trace levels of PFOA found in the wells as “safe based on decades of research.” Hastings alleges these statements were false and had the effect of concealing information from the city. The complaint separately notes that 3M has more recently told Minnesota state regulators that PFOA is the “primary driver for water treatment at the Hastings municipal wells.”
The lawsuit sets out six causes of action against 3M, including statutory liability for contamination of public wells under Minnesota law, negligence, strict liability for prohibited releases, public nuisance, statutory nuisance and trespass. Hastings is seeking compensatory damages covering costs including investigation, testing and monitoring, provision of water from an alternate source, construction of the treatment plants, and ongoing operation and maintenance, along with an order requiring 3M to abate the contamination, litigation costs and attorney fees, prejudgment interest, and a jury trial.
The complaint states that Hastings is not seeking to recover in this case for contamination by PFOS or other PFAS chemicals, or for any related firefighting foam contamination, and specifically excludes several other named sites from its claims. It also confirms the city is not seeking to recover funds it already obtained through a 2018 statewide settlement between Minnesota and 3M covering PFAS contamination. Separately, the complaint notes that Hastings opted out of a related nationwide settlement between 3M and public water systems reached in a South Carolina federal case, City of Camden, et al. v. 3M Company.
Hastings is represented by the law firms Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP, of Minneapolis, and Pawa Law Group, P.C., of Newton Centre, Massachusetts. The allegations set out in the complaint have not yet been tested in court.
