Another month, another PFAS update takes place at the Hastings City Council. At the Aug. 5 meeting, City Administrator Dan Wietecha spoke to several ongoing studies for the placement of plants 2 and 3, the potential inclusion of the veteran’s home in Hastings’ water system, and the possibility of using 3M funds for well 5.

Water Treatment Plant placement
The construction of treatment plant 1 in the Hastings Industrial Park is set to begin in 2025, a date that was pushed back in order to better inform residents of the water rate increase of 35-40% at the beginning of next year that will fund the project as well as provide more time for potential grant money. The other treatment plants are currently expected to be located in Lions Park and Wallin Park, to much community backlash.
Earlier this year, at a neighborhood event near Wallin Park, residents gathered to speak with city officials and express their displeasure at the prospect of a 100x100 foot water treatment plant in their neighborhood where a park once stood.
While neither location, Lions Park nor Wallin Park, is firmly settled upon, the city chose them as provisional locations in part because it already owned the land and therefore these locations represented the cheapest way to build treatment plants whose price tag currently sits around $70 million. The prospect of studying and buying private land for water treatment plants would only add to that price tag and potentially push out the timeline which by new federal standards must be completed within five years.
At the Aug. 5 City Council meeting, Wietecha spoke to the potential for several other locations for water treatment plants 2 and 3 on private land in order to preserve the city parks.
“Staff are reaching out to property owners for discussion,” according to the recap of the council meeting.

Veterans’ Home
The Hastings Veterans’ Home uses a private well system that, like Hastings city water, exceeds the new federal regulations for PFAS levels. According to Wietecha, there was discussion of the veterans’ home abandoning its private well in order to use Hastings’ city water after the treatment plants were completed. That connection is expected to cost $1.7 million, which due to the lack of a bonding bill from the state legislature, the City of Hastings is willing and able to pay for. If the connection were to happen, fees would be assessed over time to pay for the construction.
The Hastings Veteran’s Home is currently undertaking its own feasibility study in order to determine its next course of action.

3M Settlement Funds
Since the last update, city officials met with co-trustees of the 2018 3M settlement fund as well as the Attorney General’s office in order to use settlement money on well 5 which has been connected to the 3M dumping sites in Washington County at the center of the 2010 lawsuit that resulted in the $850 million settlement fund.
At the meeting, it was proposed that 3M cover the costs associated with well 5 via the Superfund process.
The Superfund process stems from the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) that is often simply known as Superfund. Superfund was created due to backlash around dumping sites like Love Canal and Valley of the Drums in the late 1970s, according to the EPA’s website. The Superfund “allows EPA to clean up contaminated sites. It also forces the parties responsible for the contamination to either perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanup work,” according to the EPA website.
For well 5, the potential funds wouldn’t be from the 2018 settlement, but from the 2007 consent order that forces 3M to cover the costs of cleanup outside of the scope of the 2010 lawsuit which focuses exclusively on Washington County. According to Wietecha, the Superfund process can be a long process and that this route “wasn’t our decision,” when it came to seeking 3M funds to pay for Hastings’ water treatment plants. As to the timeline of that process as well as connecting the rest of Hastings’ wells to the Washington County 3M sites, that remains to be seen.
To view the complete PFAS update in the Aug. 5 Hastings City Council meeting, visit Hastings Community TV’s YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOE9T8-2do0