From regulation and legal action to historic public funding in infrastructure, this year was a big one for water. The water industry witnessed three titanic events in 2024, any one of which would have a major impact on the industry. Together, these events will profoundly influence the direction of public water treatment and shape the sector generations into the future.
1. Multi-district litigation achieves historic product liability PFAS settlements on behalf of drinking water providers
The ongoing aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) multi-district litigation (MDL) against PFAS manufacturers has so far resulted in huge product liability settlements that were approved in 2024. Amounting to more than $14.75 billion in total, these settlements are among the top five largest in U.S. history, coming in behind only the tobacco master settlement, the opioid crisis settlements and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement.
Payouts from 3M, DuPont, Tyco and BASF will unleash significant funds to cover PFAS testing, treatment and monitoring costs for U.S. drinking water providers. Except for water systems that opted out (to preserve their right to sue the named defendants in the future), every eligible public drinking water system in the U.S. could submit the necessary paperwork to access the funding. Thousands have already done so as part of their strategy to fund PFAS contamination clean-up costs.
2. EPA sets enforceable federal limits for PFAS in drinking water
In the late 1990s, the EPA was alerted to the human health hazards of PFAS and since then has grappled with regulation development challenges such as evolving research, scientific data, chemical complexity, political barriers and limited technology for PFAS remediation. After several action plans, health advisories and other non-enforceable guidelines over more than two decades, this year the EPA set legally enforceable limits for six common PFAS in drinking water. These include maximum contaminant levels of 4 ppt for PFOA and PFOS, 10 ppt for PFHxS, PFNA and HFPO-DA and a maximum hazard index that applies to PFAS mixtures containing two or more of PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and PFBS.
Through the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act, public water systems have until 2027 to test for PFAS and until 2029 to treat PFAS that exceed the new limits. All public water treatment plants will incur the costs of monitoring and testing by the 2027 deadline as well as ratepayer communication of the results by 2029. For facilities that detect excessive levels during testing, costs could include finding a new water source; the piloting, design and installation of a new treatment system; staff training; system operation and maintenance; disposal and/or destruction of PFAS-laden filter media; and public communication. The EPA has estimated that these costs could reach as high as $1.5 billion per year and impact between 4,100 and 6,700 systems. Penalties and the risk of liability are among the costs of not meeting the deadlines.
In a one-two punch against PFAS, the EPA also designated two of the most common PFAS compounds as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, known as the Superfund. While the implications for wastewater treatment plants, airports, landfills and other passive receivers of PFAS are murky, EPA’s objective with the CERCLA designation was to increase transparency around the releases of these chemicals to help hold polluters accountable for contamination and stop PFAS from flowing into source water.
3. Public water infrastructure receives unprecedented federal investment
This year saw more rollout of the most historic federal investment in the nation’s water infrastructure ever. In light of water scarcity in a growing number of regions, the rise in extreme weather and increased attention on contaminants of concern, the federal government recognized that deferred maintenance on water systems nationwide had reached a dangerously critical level and passed sweeping bi-partisan legislation at never-before-seen levels of funding.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is having immediate positive effects on water that will benefit the industry for years to come. The BIL includes $55 billion over five years for drinking water upgrades including lead service line replacement, PFAS remediation, wastewater and stormwater management, and water infrastructure in Tribal communities, and another $8.3 billion for water infrastructure in the West, where water scarcity is a catastrophic threat. In 2024 alone, and $6.2 billion investment was announced for fiscal year 2025 to upgrade water infrastructure through Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds.
These funds will benefit water providers and customers in the form of more efficient, resilient operations and cleaner water, but their benefits won’t stop there. These steep investments will soak beyond the front lines to the thousands of industry suppliers that do the important work of innovating and introducing new technologies necessary to improve water reliability and quality. Companies developing water reuse, PFAS removal and destruction, desalination and other frontier technologies are rapidly achieving breakthrough and their products and services will likely be in high demand for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, while significant, government funding is unlikely to fully cover the cost of PFAS remediation. This is why many utilities decided to also take advantage of the PFAS settlements (or opt out of the settlements and file their own lawsuit against the PFAS manufacturers), to hold the polluters who profited from these dangerous chemicals accountable and protect their entity and residents from high costs.
It's just the beginning
As we pull the thread on the extent of PFAS contamination, the effort to eliminate it from the world’s water supply will not stop with drinking water providers. Until dangerous PFAS are eliminated everywhere, they will continue to appear in our water and disproportionately burden water treatment plants. How and when regulation will expand in this area is uncertain, but PFAS manufacturers must continue to be held responsible until the threat is extinguished. Already we are seeing ramifications for wastewater treatment plants, notably the revenue loss and increased costs from biosolids disposal in states that have begun limiting the land application of PFAS-laden biosolids.
Other water streams likely to have concentrations of PFAS are rinsate and stormwater runoff from airports and fire training facilities, leachate from landfills, and stormwater and irrigation runoff from farms. These entities did not create PFAS. In fact, airports and fire training centers were required by law to use AFFF firefighting foam, which contained PFAS. Nonetheless, they have unwittingly become part of the solution and may shoulder increased costs in one way or another. To stop PFAS from returning to source waters, wastewater facilities may have to treat effluent and reengineer their sludge and biosolids disposal strategy. Landfills may have to treat their leachate for PFAS before sending it to a publicly owned treatment works. Airports and fire training facilities may have to install stormwater runoff collection systems and conduct site abatement due to existing residue from previous AFFF use that will remain on surfaces and in the soil for years.
And we haven’t seen the last of PFAS litigation. Passive receivers are in an excellent position to assist with cleanup but shouldn’t be expected to pay for it. It’s only fair for the companies that created PFAS — and knew of their dangers for years — to clean up the pollution.
The worth of water has been redefined
These seismic events have coincided to create a highly volatile time for water, and an opportunity for future-proofing operations. In utilities’ response to increasing drinking water regulations, help has come in the form of unprecedented litigation settlements and historic federal funding. And based on estimates of what PFAS treatment upgrades will cost, water treatment systems will need every dollar they can find to achieve compliance and deliver drinking water that is safe for their communities.
The year 2024 has redefined the worth of water and set a new bar with starkly different expectations. Would-be polluters have been officially warned that water is off limits, and reliable, clean water is catapulting to the top of public priorities.
About the authors: Mike DiGiannantonio is an attorney at SL Environmental Law Group. Valentina Marastoni-Bieser is the vice president of client engagement and marketing for SL Environmental Law Group.
