Delaware will receive an additional $25 million from its 2021 PFAS settlement with DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva.
The additional payment is the result of a settlement between those companies and the state of Ohio over PFAS liabilities.
In the 2021 settlement with Delaware, there was a contingency stating that if there was a settlement on similar claims with other states, Delaware would receive up to an additional $25 million on top of the $50 million it originally received.
The provision that kicked in was if the companies reached a settlement similar to Delaware’s with any other state within eight years for more than $50 million dollars.
The settlement with Ohio was for $110 million, and it was within two years of the original settlement with Delaware.
Dirk Durstein is a deputy attorney general, and he says the money is earmarked for a specific trust.
"It will go to a trust that was created at the time of the original settlement, and it has a set of four different purposes that money can be used for,” said Durstein. “It's administered jointly by the Attorney General, the DHSS secretary, and the DNREC secretary."
The money will go to things like further sampling, testing, and analysis for PFAS contamination, cleanup and remediation of natural areas, community outreach, and community clinics.
"I think both sides anticipated at some point there would be a larger settlement with another entity, and that's why this trigger for the additional 25 million dollars was put in the settlement agreement," said Durstein.
In the original settlement, DuPont and Corteva equally contributed half of the settlement while Chemours contributed the other half.
