It started with the Skokans. In July 2023, a letter came to their home, a saltbox-style house on Toms Way, a small nook of a street not far from downtown Nantucket.
“Did anyone else get one of these letters?” Joanne Skokan asked at a cookout, explaining to her relatives and neighbors how the state was interested in testing the private well at her home.
Things moved quickly from there. Visits from researchers, tests in wells up and down the street, and then, results. Within months, the Toms Way residents would learn that many of their wells had high levels of PFAS, a group of compounds known as “forever chemicals” that can leach into water systems and cause health problems, including cancer, liver damage, and thyroid disease.
On Sunday, four households filed a class action suit against the manufacturers of the chemicals, including The 3M Co. as the lead defendant and more than a dozen others. It’s just the latest lawsuit that has targeted companies that produced chemicals to be used in just about everything from nonstick pans and the lining of food containers to the equipment that keeps firefighters safe and the foam they use to put out fires. Because these chemicals can take hundreds or thousands of years to break down in the environment, even a small spill can have lasting implications.
Nantucket is particularly susceptible to PFAS contamination because its subsurface soils are mostly sand and are highly permeable. As a result, once PFAS gets into the soil, it can quickly travel into groundwater and then drinking water.
Recent reporting has shown that the producers of these chemicals knew for decades that they were dangerous for human health and could contaminate drinking water supplies.
Regarding the new lawsuit, a spokesperson with 3M said via email, “We will continue to address litigation by defending ourselves in court or through negotiated resolutions, all as appropriate.”
On Toms Way, a quiet street not far from a fire station, most of the residents are related — the street was once a family farm, later split up among grandkids and passed down. The one household on the street that’s not a part of the extended family — Anna and Albert Swietlik, who moved in with their young kids in 2011 — would learn their results were the worst of everyone’s: nearly 45 times what the state considers safe.
When Joanne Skokan and Anna Swietlik had their blood tested, exceptionally high levels of PFAS were found.
“When this first happened, I wanted to scream from the rooftops to say, ‘Everyone test your well!’” said Skokan, 65. She doesn’t know what her blood tests mean — there isn’t an agreed upon “safe” level of PFAS. But, for the type of PFAS in her system, her levels are roughly 90 times higher than the average American, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And here’s what Skokan does know: “There’s probably at least 25 kids who were brought up on on all of our properties from childhood to adulthood.” And that’s the worry.
The town of Nantucket and the Nantucket Memorial Airport have already filed a lawsuit against the makers of PFAS and suppliers of firefighting foam. But while that suit seeks compensation for the costs associated with the investigation and cleanup of contamination, it does not represent private individuals.
The latest lawsuit is intended to be on behalf of all Nantucket residents because PFAS contamination isn’t just a problem on Toms Way — it’s an issue in other pockets across the island, too.
It’s not clear yet what contaminated the wells on Toms Way, but there are a few theories. One points to a known culprit: aqueous film-forming foam, which is used to fight fires.
At airports across the Commonwealth and beyond, firefighters routinely sprayed it as part of drills — a requirement for certification by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Hyannis was among the first communities in Massachusetts to learn that its drinking water had been contaminated by the firefighting foam. A study released earlier this year by the Silent Spring Institute found that people who lived in Hyannis during a recent 10-year period had blood levels of one type of PFAS about 3.2 times higher than normal.
The hypothesis: The use of firefighting foam had contaminated the drinking water.
On Nantucket, the fire department started switching out its foam for a product that was less toxic in 2022. But a contractor removing the foam from a firetruck late that year spilled it on the ground, said Chuck Larson, the town’s strategic projects manager. The contractor reported that a small amount had gone down a drain, but the area was cleaned multiple times.
The fire station where the spill happened is on Fairgrounds Road — less than 1,000 feet from Toms Way.
There’s also a chance the contamination has been there far longer. Before the town bought the fire station property in 2004, it had been a garage for an electric utility, Larson said. “They had equipment — transformers and such — at the lot there,” and had at least one toxic release of oil in 2006, he said. It’s impossible to know whether some of the equipment could have contained PFAS, or if foam ever had to be used on site.
Or it could be from another source. In addition to the Fairgrounds Road spill, the lawsuit cites foam used in training exercises at the Nantucket airport — just 1.5 miles away — going back to the 1960s and the dumping of contaminated waste at the landfill.
“It’s kind of like trying to solve a mystery, and getting clues,” Larson said.
Later this year, the state is going to launch an investigation to try to pinpoint the source, according to Bonnie Heiple, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
What’s more, while Massachusetts was a leader in setting drinking water standards for PFAS in 2020, earlier this year the federal government released even more stringent standards. Now the state is revisiting its requirements, with an eye toward making them more protective.
“Part of the problem is that it’s so pervasive,” Heiple said. Since 2018, the state has had a voluntary program to collect contaminated firefighting foam. As of June 2024, more than 400,000 pounds of the foam had been collected from 157 fire departments and facilities in the state. But there is still more out there. While the state has not banned its use, Heiple said the state is considering setting a standard that would regulate it further.
After the Toms Way contamination was discovered, the town quickly extended its public water line to supply residents there. That has helped alleviate some of their worries — but certainly not all of them.
For Albert and Anna Swietlik, whose PFAS levels were the highest on the street, they worry most about the health of their kids. Anna Swietlik had always thought the water tasted funny, so for years, she boiled the water they drank. Now she knows that adding heat just concentrates the chemicals. They always wondered, too, why the grass was always dead, no matter how much they watered it. Now that they’re on town water, it’s not a problem. The grass is green.
And they worry that they may lose their investment in the home that they worked so hard for, him in construction and her in an office, after immigrating from Poland.
The more the Swietliks know about the extent of the problem — and about how much the chemical manufacturers had known about the potential implications of their products — the madder they get.
“How could they jeopardize the health of millions of people around the world,” Albert Swietlik said.
And to think the companies appeared to have known the risks? He said, that’s essentially a “death sentence.”
Sabrina Shankman can be reached at sabrina.shankman@globe.com.