White House lauds Amara Strande for her advocacy as EPA announces new limits on ‘forever chemicals’

Minnesota loomed large in the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement Wednesday of new limits on so-called forever chemicals in America’s drinking water. 

During a press briefing, Brenda Mallory of the White House Council on Environmental Quality cited the advocacy of Minnesotan Amara Strande, who died nearly a year ago after a years long battle with a rare form of cancer, which her family believes could be linked to 3M chemicals the company improperly disposed of in the east metro for decades. 

“Today’s action is a critical step in striving to ensure that no child or community, no family, no parent experiences the devastation that Oakdale has seen,” said Mallory, referencing the east metro community where Strande went to high school and which has suffered high rates of cancers.

And on the other side of the ledger, no company may be more responsible for the contamination of America’s drinking water than 3M, which invented and manufactured many of the chemicals. 3M recently agreed to a $10.5 billion to $12.5 billion settlement with public drinking water systems nationwide for the contamination the chemicals have caused, coming six years after a $850 million settlement with the state of Minnesota.

The EPA announced Wednesday it will regulate six types of chemicals in a family that contains tens of thousands of compounds called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Some of the chemicals have been linked to low fertility, birth defects, immune system suppression, thyroid disease and cancer. 

The EPA set limits for two of the most prevalent and most studied PFAS chemicals — PFOA and PFOS — at 4 parts per trillion, the lowest level at which they can reliably be detected. The EPA rule sets limits on three other chemicals at 10 parts per trillion.

Amara Strande’s sister Nora and state Rep. Jeff Brand were part of a White House press call Wednesday announcing the EPA’s new limits. The Strande family has played  an increasingly influential role lobbying state and federal officials to crack down on the chemicals, carrying on the work of Amara. 

Amara Strande grew up near Maplewood-based 3M and went to Tartan High School in Oakdale, where she said cancer was so common that students joked about avoiding drinking from the water fountains.

For decades, 3M dumped its chemical waste into unlined Washington County landfills, where it leached out, polluting 200 square miles of groundwater and four aquifers that provide drinking water to thousands of east metro residents. 

In her last few months of life, Strande fought through pain to testify on bills at the Minnesota Capitol. She had more than 20 surgeries to remove tumors, until doctors could no longer cut the cancer out. Four tumors returned, growing next to her heart, wrapping around her upper right chest, fracturing her ribs. 

After she died, the Legislature passed “Amara’s Law” — a sweeping ban on products containing the chemicals. Beginning this year, the law bans all non-essential uses of the chemicals in 11 product categories. Next year, companies must disclose the chemicals’ presence in products. The law takes full effect in 2032, when all use of the chemicals will be banned in products unless the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency deems their use “currently unavoidable.”

The Minnesota Department of Health previously identified 12 cities and two manufactured home parks where at least a portion of the drinking water is estimated to exceed the new EPA limits: Alexandria, Cloquet, Cottage Grove, Hastings, Lake Elmo, Pease, Saint Paul Park, Sauk Rapids, Stillwater, Swanville, Waite Park and Woodbury, as well as the Austin manufactured home park and the Roosevelt Court in Bemidji.

A Sierra Club review of state records last year found the state’s highest levels of PFAS were in Oakdale, Cottage Grove, Hastings and Woodbury drinking water: Oakdale had 1,581 parts per trillion, Cottage Grove 1,067, Hastings 625 and Woodbury 388.

3M began making the chemicals decades ago in Cottage Grove, where it continues to make them today — as well as in other plants around the globe. 

The products are so ubiquitous because they are molecularly stable, helping make coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease and water, such as Scotchgard stain repellent, Teflon cookware, fast food wrapping and fire retardants. The company announced plans in late 2022 to exit the market by the end of 2025.

The EPA announced it would contribute $1 billion to help communities pay for upgrades to their water systems to comply with the new standards, but that’s how much it’s been estimated to cost for upgrades in Minnesota alone. Last year, MPCA Assistant Commissioner Kirk Koudelka estimated the cost could top $1 billion.

The human cost is harder to calculate.

Amara’s sister Nora said not long after her sister was diagnosed with the rare cancer called fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, a nearly 15-pound tumor was extracted from her liver during two surgeries that nearly killed her. After a 40-day ICU stay, the family got a $900,000 bill.

“I don’t know anyone who could pay that first bill alone,” Nora Strande said.

Rep. Athena Hollins, DFL-St. Paul, a chief author of the PFAS disclosure bill, said the EPA action feels like vindication after a long, lonely fight in Minnesota, but won’t right the wrongs of the past.

“This is not the end of our fight,” Hollins said.