"Following the recent Council Workshop in February on PFAS, it was a made a priority to reach out as a Council to our residents. Establishing trust and transparency on ensuring the city’s drinking water supply is safe is a top priority of the City Council."”

Hastings City Council

Drinking water is safe

In the meantime, residents should know that Hastings City drinking water is safe to drink under current guidelines. There have been no changes in the City’s drinking water, and it meets the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

Hastings’ drinking water is safe to drink, and the City of Hastings is exploring options in the fight against PFAS.

On Tuesday, February 21, in a Council Workshop, City Council members received an update on the Limited Phase 1 Environmental Assessment on PFAS (per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances) in the city’s drinking water supply and discussed potential next steps, financial impacts, and communication.

This followed an earlier presentation by representatives from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) in September 2022, about U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) interest in two species of PFAS (PFOA and PFOS) in public drinking water. The EPA is expected to establish National Primary Drinking Water Regulation Maximum Contaminant Levels in the coming months. MDH staff also described MDH’s efforts to develop updated state guidance values for PFAS. These new health-based values are expected to be released by MDH for the State of Minnesota this spring and likely will result in drinking water advisories for the City of Hastings.

The City Council released the following statement:

“Following the recent Council Workshop in February on PFAS, it was a made a priority to reach out as a Council to our residents. Establishing trust and transparency on ensuring the city’s drinking water supply is safe is a top priority of the City Council.

“The City of Hastings drinking water is safe to drink under current guidelines—there have been no changes in the city’s drinking water. PFAS levels have been monitored for several years and city wells have been within the current standards.

“Last fall, we learned from the Minnesota Department of Health that drinking water levels for PFAS contaminants will become more stringent, and we took steps to learn about the levels of these contaminants in city wells and ways to filter them from our drinking water supply. In the recent Council Workshop, we learned that the fixes for these are expensive and will take time to implement, but rest assured they are a priority for the city.

“We have begun outreach to our state and federal elected representatives, attorneys, area experts, and others to access funding and solutions for long-term mitigation of these contaminants. We will continue to keep our community informed about our efforts and will notify the community when the new regulatory standards come out. In the meantime, please contact any of us with questions, along with city staff. You may visit the city website and Minnesota Department of Health website for more information on PFAS.”

PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances) are a family of manmade chemicals that have been widely used since the 1940s in products such as Teflon, Scotchgard, microwave popcorn bags, various industrial applications, cosmetics and other consumer products. They have been called “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in the environment.

Several PFAS chemicals are present in all 6 Hastings City wells but do not exceed current MDH guidance values for multiple PFAS, as determined by a Health Risk Index of 1.0 (our measures range from 0.16 to 0.84). A Health Risk Index greater than 1.0 is given a drinking water advisory by the MDH.

Based on advances in science and emerging knowledge of the health effects of PFAS on humans, it is expected that new EPA regulations and state guidelines will be lower than the current MDH thresholds and will likely trigger a requirement for Hastings to implement filtration or other treatment to remove PFAS from our drinking water supply to meet the new limits.

Steps the city is taking

Over the past few months, city staff have been working with state agencies to learn more about Hastings PFAS levels, where the chemicals come from and how to best mitigate them in the future. This is a long-term process. The Limited Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) identified potential sources locations of PFAS contributing to groundwater contamination, which will be subject further investigation by way of a future Phase 2 ESA to be completed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

The Phase 1 ESA also identified several significant data gaps for further investigation. This includes delineating a PFAS plume associated with the Pine Street Dump Superfund site and additional modeling of the City’s wells to understand their radius of influence and potential interaction with the Mississippi River.

Understanding the source of PFAS, as well as the chemical’s underground movement is important, for the design of a treatment system and for eligibility of some potential funding to pay for implementation of the system.

The city has hired WSB engineers to assist in developing a project scope and cost estimate to filter PFAS from our water system. The cost estimate is $61.7M for three water treatment plants and associated raw watermains. Having a cost estimate is essential to communicating the project for potential funding options. The city will submit the to the state’s Drinking Water Revolving Fund Project Priority List this spring and continues to position the project for other potential funding opportunities.

Learn More

In the meantime, residents should know that Hastings City drinking water is safe to drink under current guidelines. There have been no changes in the City’s drinking water, and it meets the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. See the most recent Drinking Water Report (Consumer Confidence Report).

The Minnesota Department of Health PFAS Webpage has general information about PFAS and human health and ongoing activities in Minnesota. The page also includes information on steps that consumers can take to protect themselves from exposure to PFAS, such as purchasing a home water filtration system and avoiding eating certain foods known to contain higher levels of PFAS. Residents with specific concerns should contact their healthcare providers.

For health-related questions, please contact the MDH Site Assessment & Consultation Unit at 651-201-4897, or toll-free at 1-800-657-3908, or by email: health.hazard@state.mn.us

For questions related to the Hastings Public Water Supply, contact the City at 651-480-6185, or the MDH Drinking Water Protection at 651-201-4700 or health.drinkingwater@state.mn.us.