PARCHMENT (WKZO AM/FM) — The residents of Parchment may have clean water again after an extraordinary community wide effort, but they are still living on a plume of contaminants that they have been exposed to through their tap water for years if not decades.
Private well owners have yet to get a permanent solution to their contaminated wells.
That’s why three of them have filed a federal class-action lawsuit alleging that 3-M, the firm that manufactured the product that contained the PFAS, and Georgia Pacific, which used it and allegedly discarded it into the groundwater, should be held financially responsible for any healthcare costs caused by the chemical compounds.
The original plaintiffs expect more people to join them.
Nicholas Coulson is one of the Attorney’s handling the suit. He says there could be substantial damages. For now they want them to underwrite the cost of health screening.
The suit filed by Liddle & Dubin P.C. of Detroit accuses Georgia Pacific failed to properly design a landfill upstream from the Parchment City water wells that leached PFAS and other chemicals into the groundwater.
It accuses Minnesota based 3M of failing to disclose to its customers the health dangers of PFAS, which was used in chemicals designed to waterproof a variety of products.
3M has issued a statement saying it acted responsibly. Georgia Pacific says there are no proven links between its actions and the contamination.
