3M 2005 Annual Report Download - page 93

67
final report is expected to be prepared and submitted to the EPA, which in turn will make a final risk assessment
based on the report and additional data not considered by the Science Advisory Board. In January 2006, the EPA
stated that to date it “is not aware of any studies specifically relating current levels of PFOA exposure to human
health effects.”
The EPA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Company and Dyneon LLC, a subsidiary of the
Company, in October 2004, under which the Company is monitoring the potential presence of PFOA at and around
the Company’s manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama. Activities are in progress pursuant to this Memorandum of
Understanding.
Regulatory activities concerning PFOA and/or PFOS continue in Europe and elsewhere, and before certain
international bodies. These activities include gathering of exposure and use information, risk assessment, and
consideration of regulatory approaches, including a proposal now pending before the European Union Parliament to
implement a marketing and use directive to regulate PFOS.
The Company has been cooperating with the process to review whether PFOS meets the criteria under the
Protocol for Persistent Organic Pollutants ("POPs Protocol"). This Protocol is part of an international treaty known
as the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). In December of 2005, the Executive
Body comprised of parties to the Protocol decided that the record generated under the Protocol review process
was sufficient to determine that PFOS qualifies as a "POP" and that the review process should now proceed to a
"Track B" review focused on the economic impacts and other aspects of adding PFOS to the Protocol. The United
States, which has signed but not yet ratified this Protocol, indicated its disagreement with the Executive Body
decision. PFOS also has been nominated for addition to another international treaty focused on POPs known as
the Stockholm Convention. A process to prepare a risk profile for PFOS is now proceeding under that Convention.
The Company and state agencies tested groundwater in 2004 and 2005 beneath three former waste disposal sites in
Washington County, Minnesota, used many years ago by companies with which the Company contracted to dispose
of waste containing perfluorooctanyl compounds. The test results show that water from certain municipal wells in
Oakdale, Minnesota near two of the former disposal sites and some private wells in that vicinity in Lake Elmo,
Minnesota contain low levels of PFOS and PFOA. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is providing carbon filters
for a small number of private wells in Lake Elmo measuring above a level established by the Minnesota Department
of Health. No perfluorooctanyl compounds have been detected in wells in the vicinity of the third former disposal site
in Washington County. The Company has provided the test results from these private and municipal wells in Lake
Elmo and Oakdale to the EPA. On its own initiative, the Company proposed and has reached an agreement with the
City of Oakdale under which the Company will at its own expense construct, operate and maintain for at least five
years a granular activated carbon water treatment system to treat one or more of Oakdale’s municipal wells. The
Company donated several acres of land to the city of Lake Elmo, Minnesota for a water tower and granted the City
approximately $3.3 million that the City will use to expand municipal water service to neighborhoods that include a
small number of private wells in which levels of PFOS and PFOA have been detected.
The Company markets its newly reformulated Scotchgard™ products (that replace the formulations from which the
Company began its phase-out in 2000), pursuant to a consent agreement with the EPA that requires extensive health
and environmental effects testing of the base chemistry underlying such products, most of which has been
completed. The EPA has not yet issued the anticipated hazard assessment of that health and environmental effects
testing for the reformulated Scotchgard™ products.
The Company cannot predict what regulatory actions arising from the foregoing proceedings and activities, if any,
may be taken regarding such compounds or the consequences of any such actions.
Litigation: A former employee filed a purported class action lawsuit in 2002 in the Circuit Court of Morgan County,
Alabama involving perfluorooctanyl chemistry. The lawsuit seeks unstated compensatory and punitive damages and
alleges that the plaintiffs suffered fear, increased risk, sub clinical injuries and property damage from exposure to
perfluorooctanyl chemistry at or near the Company’s Decatur, Alabama, manufacturing facility. The complaint also
alleges that the Company acted improperly with respect to disclosures to workers concerning such chemistry. The
Circuit Court in 2005 granted the Company’s motion to dismiss the named plaintiff’s personal injury-related claims
on the basis that such claims are barred by the exclusivity provisions of the state’s Workers Compensation Act.
Also in 2005, the judge in a second purported class action lawsuit (filed by three residents of Morgan County,
Alabama seeking unstated compensatory and punitive damages involving alleged damage to their property from
emissions of perfluorooctanyl compounds from the Company’s Decatur, Alabama, manufacturing facility that formerly