The Australian government has filed its largest ever legal claim against a single corporation, suing Minnesota based chemicals giant 3M for more than $1.43 billion over contamination from PFAS-laden firefighting foam used at 28 defense bases across the country. Attorney General Michelle Rowland announced the action on 28 May, accusing 3M of giving false assurances that the foam was safe, biodegradable, and non toxic while withholding its own internal testing that showed “significant adverse environmental effects.” The lawsuit seeks to recover past and future costs of investigating and managing the contamination, adding Australia to a growing list of jurisdictions, from the United States to Belgium and the Netherlands, pursuing 3M for one of the most widespread environmental poisonings in modern history.
The scale of the contamination is staggering. The Department of Defense has already spent $923 million addressing the impacts, including $289 million in legal settlements with affected communities, and has treated or removed more than 200,000 metric tons of contaminated soil and over 13 billion liters of water. PFAS, or per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of nearly 15,000 synthetic chemicals prized for their resistance to heat, stains, grease, and water. Dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, they accumulate in ecosystems, drinking water, and human tissue, with research linking exposure to liver damage, lower birth weight, testicular cancer, and immune system suppression. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified PFOA, a key PFAS compound, as a category 1 carcinogen in December 2023. 3M has faced thousands of lawsuits globally, including a landmark $10.3 billion settlement with U.S. public water systems in 2023, but has never admitted liability. In its response to the Australian suit, 3M stated it never manufactured PFAS in Australia and ceased sales of the products there roughly two decades ago, while noting that the Defense Department continued using PFAS containing foams for nearly two decades after that.
The Australian case carries significant legal and political weight beyond the damages sought. It represents the culmination of years of pressure from firefighters, affected residents, and parliamentary inquiries that have documented clusters of cancer in towns such as Williamtown in New South Wales and the Aboriginal community of Wreck Bay in the Jervis Bay Territory. In 2023, the Victorian government controversially blocked Fire Rescue Victoria from joining a class action against 3M, citing “reputational risks,” a decision that fire chief Mick Tisbury described as a “kick in the guts” that left taxpayers shouldering a bill that should fall on the manufacturer. The federal government has since banned the import, export, manufacture, and use of three key PFAS groups, PFOS, PFOA, and PFHxS, with limited exceptions, though no federal ban on PFAS containing firefighting foams has yet been enacted. Assistant Defense Minister Peter Khalil called the lawsuit “the most significant legal action undertaken by Commonwealth and Defense in living memory,” framing it as a stand on behalf of “the Australian people and the Australians that are affected.” Whether the courts accept the Commonwealth’s argument that 3M knowingly concealed risks for decades will set a precedent for how nations recover costs from corporations whose products outlast the civilizations that used them.
