Stuart, Florida, is the kind of place people move to for the water. A small coastal city of roughly 18,000 on the Treasure Coast, it sits where the St. Lucie River meets the Indian River Lagoon. Martin County, where Stuart serves as the county seat, is home to about 160,000 people. The city draws its drinking water from a shallow aquifer fed by a network of 30 municipal wells — wells that, until 2014, nobody had ever tested for a class of chemicals called PFAS.
That year, routine testing changed everything.
What They Found in the Water
Initial sampling in 2014–2015 revealed combined PFOS and PFOA levels of approximately 200 parts per trillion (ppt) in Stuart's drinking water supply, with the highest individual PFOS concentration reaching 180 ppt. At the time, the EPA's health advisory level was 70 ppt for combined PFOA and PFOS — meaning Stuart's water was nearly three times over the advisory threshold.
But the worst was yet to come. Further testing of individual wells showed that some had PFAS concentrations exceeding 1,000 ppt — more than 14 times the EPA advisory level. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection confirmed that three public supply wells had PFOA/PFOS concentrations above the 70 ppt health advisory. Those wells were immediately shut down.
The source of the contamination: aqueous film-forming foam, known as AFFF, a firefighting foam used for decades at fire training facilities near the city's wellfields. AFFF is extraordinarily effective at smothering fuel fires. It is also loaded with PFAS — the so-called “forever chemicals” that don't break down in the environment and accumulate in groundwater, soil, and human blood.
The Florida DEP's assessment confirmed what city officials suspected: AFFF was a significant source of the contamination in the affected wells. The chemicals had migrated through the soil into the shallow aquifer that supplied Stuart's drinking water. Nobody had told the city. Nobody had tested for it. And the chemicals had been accumulating for years.
The Decision to Fight
Stuart's leaders faced a choice that thousands of American communities now confront: absorb the cost of cleanup, pass it to ratepayers, or hold the manufacturers accountable.
The city chose accountability.
Stuart retained Morgan & Morgan and Weitz & Luxenberg — two firms with deep experience in environmental and toxic tort litigation — and filed suit against 3M Company, DuPont de Nemours, Chemours, Corteva, and other manufacturers of PFAS-containing AFFF. The case was transferred into the growing AFFF multidistrict litigation, MDL No. 2873, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, overseen by Judge Richard M. Gergel.
By 2020, hundreds of water utilities and communities across the country had filed similar claims in the same MDL. But Stuart's case was selected as something special: a bellwether. In mass litigation, bellwether cases go to trial first. They test the evidence, establish legal precedents, and — critically — create leverage for settlement negotiations. Stuart's selection meant that a small Florida city would become the test case for whether PFAS manufacturers could be held financially responsible for contaminating America's drinking water.
Twenty Million Dollars and Counting
While the legal case proceeded, Stuart couldn't wait. People needed clean water.
The city installed an ion-exchange treatment system across its 30 wells, using specialized resins designed to capture PFAS molecules from the water before it reached taps. It was effective — Mayor Christopher Collins would later confirm that the treated water tests at “non-detectable” levels of PFAS. But it was not cheap.
By the time the numbers were tallied, Stuart had spent approximately $20 million on PFAS treatment infrastructure and operations, with ongoing resin replacement costs running about $2 million per year. The spent resins can't simply be discarded — they must be incinerated to destroy the PFAS they've absorbed, adding to the expense. And as the city pushes contamination levels closer to zero to meet tightening federal standards, that annual cost is expected to rise.
For a city of 18,000 people, $20 million is not a line item. It's a crisis.
“There was PFAS found in the groundwater, and the city of Stuart was very proactive in going after this issue.” — Mayor Christopher Collins
The Settlements That Changed the Game
Stuart's role as bellwether plaintiff did exactly what bellwether cases are designed to do: it forced the defendants to reckon with the evidence.
In mid-2023, as Stuart's trial date approached, 3M reached a landmark nationwide settlement with public water providers. The headline figure: up to $12.5 billion, to be paid out over 13 years — the largest drinking water contamination settlement in U.S. history. It was explicitly designed to help municipalities fund PFAS testing, treatment infrastructure, and long-term operations.
The 3M settlement was not alone. DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva agreed to a separate $1.185 billion settlement for public water systems. Tyco contributed $750 million. BASF added $316.5 million. In total, the combined AFFF MDL settlements for public water providers exceeded $14.7 billion.
Stuart also secured a direct settlement with DuPont for $2.6 million, with Mayor Collins pledging that “every penny of what is recovered in settlement, both in this and future settlements, will go towards resin filters and/or detecting new contaminants in the water.”
By 2025, the settlement claims process was actively underway, with water systems across the country filing documentation to qualify for funds. Stuart — the city that had refused to quietly absorb the cost — had helped unlock billions of dollars for communities nationwide.
The Regulatory Shift
Stuart's case did not happen in a vacuum. It was part of a broader movement — driven by science, community pressure, and litigation — that fundamentally changed how the federal government regulates PFAS in drinking water.
In April 2024, the EPA finalized its first-ever enforceable National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFAS, setting Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) of 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and 4 parts per trillion for PFOS — individual limits, not combined. The new standards are roughly 17 times more stringent than the previous 70 ppt health advisory. Utilities must complete initial monitoring by 2027 and achieve full compliance by 2029.
The rule also established a hazard-index approach for additional PFAS compounds, recognizing that contamination rarely involves just one chemical. For cities like Stuart, where multiple PFAS were detected, this framework provides a more comprehensive protective standard.
These regulations matter because they transform PFAS from a voluntary concern into a legal obligation. Every public water system in the country must now test for PFAS, report the results publicly, and treat the water if levels exceed the MCLs. Communities that previously had no idea what was in their water will soon find out.
What Stuart Teaches Us
The City of Stuart's story is not unique in its contamination — PFAS has been detected in thousands of public water systems across the United States, and the full national cost of remediation is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. But Stuart is remarkable for what it did about it.
First, the city acted quickly. When contamination was confirmed in 2016, officials didn't downplay the results or wait for federal guidance. They shut down the affected wells, installed treatment, and set a self-imposed PFAS maximum of 30 ppt — well below the EPA's then-advisory of 70 ppt. By the time the EPA finalized its 4 ppt MCLs in 2024, Stuart was already ahead of the curve.
Second, the city chose litigation over resignation. Filing a bellwether lawsuit against some of the largest chemical manufacturers in the world was not a foregone conclusion for a city of 18,000 people. It required political will, community support, and a willingness to be first.
Third, Stuart's success created a template. The bellwether trial pressure directly contributed to $14.7 billion in manufacturer settlements for public water systems. Cities that might never have had the resources to litigate individually now have access to settlement funds because Stuart was willing to go first.
And fourth, Stuart demonstrated that the costs of PFAS remediation — $20 million and climbing for a single small city — are real and quantifiable. That data strengthened the case for both national settlements and enforceable federal standards.
The Work Ahead
Stuart's water now tests at non-detectable levels of PFAS. The settlement funds are flowing. The EPA's MCLs are law. By most measures, this is a success story.
But the work is far from over. Resin replacement costs will continue rising as standards tighten. The 3M settlement pays out over 13 years — a long timeline for cities managing immediate infrastructure needs. And the 2029 compliance deadline for the EPA's MCLs means that thousands of other communities across the country are just beginning the journey that Stuart started a decade ago.
As of mid-2026, the AFFF MDL includes nearly 20,000 filed lawsuits, with more than 15,000 still pending. Many of those are individual health claims from firefighters and military personnel exposed to AFFF. At least one Stuart resident has filed suit alleging that years of PFAS exposure through the city's water led to a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis — a reminder that settlement checks don't undo biological harm.
At the EPR Foundation, we track cases like Stuart's because they illustrate a fundamental principle of environmental protection: the people who create the contamination should pay for the cleanup. Stuart didn't manufacture AFFF. Stuart didn't design PFAS. Stuart just turned on the tap. When a community of 18,000 people can take on 3M and win — and in doing so, unlock billions for communities nationwide — that is what accountability looks like.
The question for the rest of the country is simple: How many more Stuarts are out there, still drinking water they haven't tested?
Sources: Florida Department of Environmental Protection PFAS Dynamic Plan; PFAS Project Lab; Grist; CBS12 WPEC; ForensisGroup legal analysis of AFFF MDL No. 2873; Napoli Shkolnik PFAS Settlement Steering Committee; ConsumerNotice.org AFFF lawsuit tracker; EPA PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (2024).