In a statement, Mike Roman, the chairman and chief executive of 3M, called the agreement “an important step forward for 3M” and said it built on “our announcement that we will exit all PFAS manufacturing by the end of 2025.”

The settlement, which requires court approval, would put an end to legal claims including a test case brought by the city of Stuart, Florida, that had been scheduled for a trial before a federal judge on June 5. Mike Mortell, the city manager of Stuart, said the community was “grateful” that the settlement had been reached.

The deal followed a similar agreement with Chemours, DuPont and Corteva, which agreed on June 2 to pay $1.19 billion into a fund that will be used to remove PFAS from public drinking water systems.

The synthetic chemicals are so ubiquitous that nearly all Americans, including newborns, carry PFAS in their bloodstream, and as many as 200 million Americans are exposed to PFAS through their tap water, according to a peer-reviewed 2020 study.

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Hundreds of communities across the country have sued 3M and other PFAS manufacturers, claiming that their soil and water were contaminated by the chemicals, which are also used in food packaging and a wide variety of other products to make them resistant to heat, water, oil and corrosion.

In one of those suits, the city of Stuart sued 3M and several other companies in federal court, claiming that its water supply had been contaminated by firefighting foam containing PFAS — used for decades in training exercises by the city’s Fire Department.

But as 3M and the plaintiffs closed in on a settlement, they asked a federal judge in South Carolina to delay the trial so they could try to reach a deal instead. The judge gave the parties up to 21 days to reach a deal.

While the settlement will go far in helping cities and towns address PFAS water contamination, local taxpayers will still be left footing much of the bills for cleanup, Mortell, who was previously Stuart’s city attorney, said in an earlier interview.

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He noted that in 2016, Stuart closed and replaced wells that were contaminating the local water supply but was still incurring cleanup costs. The city had estimated the damages and cleanup costs for Stuart alone at $100 million to $120 million, he said.

“I don’t think we’ll ever get close to that much net to the city, so I think there is no making us whole,” Mortell said.

Brunswick County, North Carolina, spent nearly $1 billion after extensive PFAS contamination was found in the Cape Fear watershed, and was still incurring about $2.9 million annually in expenses, a 2021 study found. Orange County, California, has also estimated that infrastructure needed to lower the levels of PFAS in its drinking water could cost $1 billion.

3M said in a statement that it would continue to address other PFAS litigation “by defending itself in court or through negotiated resolutions, all as appropriate.”

Researchers have sought to put a dollar value on the health harms from PFAS in the United States: A 2022 study found the costs of treating diseases attributable to PFAS exposure to be as much as $62.6 billion. And when the country proposed a rule last year to strengthen drinking water standards for PFAS, the Environmental Protection Agency calculated an annual benefit of $533 million in improved cardiovascular health, $300 million in reduced renal cell carcinoma and $178 million from the reduction of low birth-weight births across the United States.

Analysts at Morningstar, a research firm, estimate that 3M’s total liabilities related to PFAS could grow to as much as $30 billion as state, foreign and personal injury claims are factored in….