Minnesota settlement with 3M may fix drinking water but not the environment

For the foreseeable future, the indestructible chemicals that 3M made and dumped for years at four sites between Woodbury and Grey Cloud Island will continue to move through groundwater into streams and lakes.The $850 million court settlement between Minnesota and 3M that ended a decadelong fight over contaminated groundwater in the east metro will go a long way toward making drinking water safe for some 150,000 residents of Washington County. Already, there is hopeful talk about a new water treatment plant, hooking residents up to municipal water systems instead of private wells, and maybe even drawing water from the Mississippi or St. Croix Rivers instead of from contaminated aquifers. In short, for drinking water there are a lot of workarounds.