The city is hoping to take its suit alleging PFAS contamination of the city’s groundwater, by more than 40 companies, to trial.
By Gregory Weaver, Fresnoland
The City of Fresno is making its second major legal offensive against corporate polluters in two years, filing suit against more than 40 companies it accuses of contaminating the city’s groundwater with PFAS, the synthetic compounds known as “forever chemicals.”
Fresno’s groundwater is over 600% EPA standards for forever chemicals — some of the worst contamination in California, according to a 2024 investigation from USA Today. An analysis from the Environmental Working Group found contaminated sites across central and north Fresno, from Old Fig Garden to Pinedale.
The lawsuit, filed Nov. 3 in Fresno County Superior Court, names industry giants 3M and DuPont alongside local metal plating shops, E. & J. Gallo Winery, and chemical distributors. The city alleges the companies designed, manufactured, sold, or used PFAS-containing products that have leached into soil and drinking water supplies serving roughly 142,000 local homes and businesses.
City Attorney Andrew Janz described the city’s latest step as early days before getting money from the chemical companies.
“We want to be absolutely clear, we will take this to court if we have to,” said Janz. “We do expect this case to be litigated over several years. I don’t think we’re going to be picking a jury anytime soon.”
In most years, Fresno does not use this contaminated water, instead sourcing drinking water supplies in normal-to-wet years from the Kings and San Joaquin Rivers. But in drought, Fresno’s highly polluted groundwater comes into play – along with huge costs to clean it up from agribusiness and industrial polluters.
Last year, Fresno secured a $233-million settlement with Shell, Dow Chemical, and other firms over TCP contamination – a byproduct of manufacturing that internal company memos revealed was essentially hazardous waste hidden in pesticide products marketed to local farmers as pure. Shell had disposed of the toxic chemical in its nematocides to save on disposal costs, Fresnoland reported last year, even though TCP had no agricultural purpose.
That case, along with similar TCP lawsuits filed by communities up and down the San Joaquin Valley, never went to trial. Shell and Dow settled with Clovis, Atwater, and dozens of other Valley cities rather than face juries.
A major hole in those settlements, Fresnoland found, was that lawyers on the case never calculated the true cost of clean-up. As a result, Fresno’s seemingly impressive $233 million settlement last year was actually projected to only last a few years.
The Fresno complaint takes aim not just at chemical manufacturers but the entire PFAS supply chain: the companies that made the synthetic compounds, those that distributed them, and the local businesses that used them. The city explicitly opted out of a federal class-action settlement involving PFAS in firefighting foam, preserving its right to pursue the broader contamination claims in state court.
PFAS compounds have been used since the 1940s in everything from non-stick cookware to waterproof clothing. The chemicals are virtually indestructible in the environment — hence “forever chemicals” — and studies have linked exposure to kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disorders and other health problems.
Last year, the EPA set the first enforceable drinking water limits for PFAS. The maximum contaminant level was set as low as 4 parts per trillion (PPT) for some compounds.
Fresno’s is over 250 parts per trillion. Near Fresno Yosemite International, it’s over 4,000, for some PFAS compounds. They have until April 2029 to meet the standard.
The complaint alleges that 3M and the DuPont-related defendants knew their products posed risks to human health but “misled the public and government agencies about the threat” of PFAS while continuing to sell them. It also accuses the DuPont corporate family of shuffling assets through spinoffs and mergers designed to leave PFAS liabilities with undercapitalized entities that cannot pay, which is illegal in California.
3M, duPont, and Gallo could not be reached for comment.
The city is seeking money from the manufacturers, requiring the defendants to clean up the contamination to meet the EPA’s new drinking water standards.
Total damages have not been estimated yet, but cases in Southern California, adjusted for inflation, show the true cost of cleanup could be over $600 million.
For a region already grappling with some of the state’s worst drinking water quality, the lawsuit represents another front in an ongoing battle to hold polluters accountable – and to keep the costs of meeting new drinking water standards from falling on ratepayers.
“If we don’t recover the money from the sources of contamination – these corporate chemical companies – then we have to pass on that cost to ratepayers,” said Fresno Councilmember Miguel Arias.
“We’re not willing to do that. The council has aggressively gone after these corporations for the pollution’s impacts.”
This article first appeared on Fresnoland and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
