By Zoya Teirstein, Grist (This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.)
The United States government said it is immune to 27 lawsuits filed by local and state governments, businesses, and property owners over the military’s role in contaminating the country with deadly PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”
The lawsuits are a small fraction of the thousands of cases brought by plaintiffs all over the country against a slew of entities that manufactured, sold, and used a product called aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF — an ultra-effective fire suppressant that leached into drinking water supplies and soil across the U.S. over the course of decades.
The Department of Justice asked a U.S. district judge in South Carolina to dismiss the lawsuits last month, arguing that the government can’t be held liable for PFAS contamination. Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the move “misguided” and said that dismissing the lawsuits would extend an ongoing environmental catastrophe the Pentagon helped create.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known by the acronym PFAS (pronounced PEA’-fass), were invented by the chemical giant DuPont in the 1940s. DuPont trademarked the chemical as “Teflon,” which many Americans came to know and love for its use in nonstick cookware in the back half of the 20th century. 3M, another industry behemoth, quickly surpassed DuPont as the world’s largest manufacturer of PFAS, which have also been used in makeup, food packaging, clothing, and many industrial applications such as plastics, lubricants, and coolants
Unfortunately, PFAS causes a host of health problems. PFAS have been linked to testicular, kidney and thyroid cancers; cardiovascular disease; and immune deficiencies.
The Department of Defense became involved in PFAS development in the 1960s. In response to a number of deadly infernos on military ship decks, the Navy’s research arm, the Naval Research Laboratory, collaborated with 3M on a new kind of firefighting foam that could put out high-temperature fires.
The foam’s active ingredient was fluorinated surfactant, otherwise known as perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS — one of thousands of chemicals under the PFAS umbrella. Internal studies and memos show that 3M became aware that its PFAS products could be harmful to animal test subjects not long after the foam was patented.
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