Some 60,000 residential water customers in New Jersey will share $4.9 million in the settlement of a lawsuit that charged a water company and a chemical maker with violating a state health limit on the presence of PFOA, a toxic “forever chemical,” in drinking water.

Middlesex Water Co. and 3M agreed to settle the class action almost four years after it was filed in New Jersey state court, citing the length of the litigation and the prospect of further costs to both sides should it go to trial.

The settlement, announced on Oct. 3, is not a personal injury case but is designed to compensate individual claimants for the cost of buying bottled water, installing filtration or seeing doctors after Middlesex Water Co. told some of its customers in October 2021 that their drinking water exceeded

See Full Page