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A map showing some of the testing sites and well locations near the Petersburgh landfill that tested positive for contaminants, including PFOA and heavy metals.

TROY — The town of Petersburgh filed a lawsuit this week against 3M, DuPont Co. and several other chemical manufacturers seeking compensation for the contamination of the community's groundwater and drinking water supplies with manmade chemicals that were used at a local plastics company.

The lawsuit alleges those companies distributed the perfluorinated chemicals that contained the "deadly" perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. The materials were used to make make products that are resistant to heat and chemical reactions and also known to "repel oil, grease, stains and water."

The town's legal action is unrelated to a class-action settlement involving a Petersburgh plastics company, Tonoga, Inc. (Taconic Plastics), which agreed to pay $23.5 million to settle its case. The first round of payments in that case was scheduled to be distributed in August, although the eligibility for the hundreds of residents whose drinking water supplies — and in many instances, their blood — were contaminated with the toxic manufacturing chemical was still being finalized several months ago.

That class-action settlement was approved earlier this year by state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McGrath. 

The lawsuit filed on behalf of Petersburgh in state Supreme Court in Rensselaer County asserts the chemical companies had knowledge that their products could be harmful to humans and persist in drinking water.

"The PFOA contamination of the drinking water supplies across Petersburgh ... is a direct and proximate result of the release of PFOA contained in PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) products manufactured, designed, sold, and/or supplied by defendants to the sole industrial manufacturer located in Petersburgh," the lawsuit states.

The town is seeking compensation for past and future testing and detection of PFOA contamination, as well as payment for any remediation and water filtration expenses. It also seeks a judgment to cover the costs of providing alternate water supplies, including for private landowners whose wells were polluted with PFOA.

"In humans, PFOA remains in the body for years. Second, in humans and mammals, PFOA can bioaccumulate by crossing the placenta from mother to fetus and by passing to infants through breast milk," the lawsuit asserts. "Third, PFOA biomagnifies up the food chain. This occurs, for example, when humans eat fish that have ingested PFOA."

The lawsuit said that by the 1960s, both 3M and DuPont had conducted animal studies that revealed the manufacturing chemicals were toxic and could pose health risks; and that DuPont was aware PFOA could "move rapidly in groundwater and migrate to nearby bodies of water."

Citing data from studies that were conducted decades ago by DuPont on plant workers at a manufacturing facility in Parkersburg, W.Va., the lawsuit also alleges that those who were exposed to the chemicals, including PFOA, "showed an elevated incidence over expected (levels) of a variety of cancers and other adverse health effects, including elevated liver enzymes and birth defects. ... Nonetheless, such data was not published, provided to governmental entities as required by law, or otherwise publicly disclosed at the time."

The lawsuit notes that DuPont also documented outcomes of pregnancies for employees of the Parkersburg plant between 1979 and 1981, "finding two of seven children born to female plant workers ... had birth defects — one an 'unconfirmed' eye and tear duct defect, and one a nostril and eye defect."

It's unclear whether the companies have been served with a copy of the complaint filed in Rensselaer County this week. Attorneys for the town of Petersburgh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The separate class-action settlement approved earlier this year will provide a medical monitoring program in Petersburgh that is scheduled to last 15 years. That program will be coordinated with a medical monitoring program from a third class-action settlement involving a chemical manufacturing plant that operated in North Bennington, Vt., and will help closely track the health of residents who had PFOA detected in their bloodstream.

There are also more than 40 pending lawsuits that were filed on behalf of individuals in the region who died or have been afflicted with illnesses allegedly tied to PFOA. Those cases are expected to reach the trial phase beginning next year and are pending in U.S. District Court in Albany and state Supreme Court in Rensselaer County.

Another settlement was approved earlier this year in class-action litigation filed on behalf of current and former residents of Hoosick Falls. That complaint, filed in 2016 in U.S. District Court in Albany, accused Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and Honeywell International — and later 3M and DuPont Co. — of each having roles in the decades-long pollution of the community's water supplies.

The settlements are intended to compensate residents for the potential health consequences of their exposure to the chemicals, as well as the potential loss of property value, and to provide a system of early detection for any related health issues they may suffer in the years ahead.

The payments under the settlement in Hoosick Falls are being divided among roughly 1,800 qualifying property owners, and the amounts each will receive had depended on multiple factors, including the number of certified class members.

The second portion of the settlement — categorized as the "nuisance settlement class" — set aside $7.7 million to compensate those who had a private well contaminated with PFOA, if the pollution was detected on or after Dec. 16, 2015. That portion of the settlement applies to individuals and may include more than one person per household, including tenants. 

The settlement in the federal case filed in Albany was reached after the companies had lost a series of court rulings over the past four years, including their arguments for having the case dismissed and excluding the cost of long-term medical monitoring.

DuPont did not agree to the settlement, and the case against them in Albany is moving toward trial.

Brendan J. Lyons is a managing editor for the Times Union overseeing the Capitol Bureau and investigations. Lyons joined the Times Union in 1998 as a crime reporter before being assigned to the investigations team. He became editor of the investigations team in 2013 and began overseeing the Capitol Bureau in 2017. You can reach him at blyons@timesunion.com or 518-454-5547.