March 09, 2025
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Law firm recruiting Yorkville for PFAS class action

Yorkville considers joining lawsuit against companies responsible for potential forever chemical contamination

By Joey Weslo
Students from Naperville Central High School kayak on the Fox River in Yorkville. According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), the Glen D. Palmer Dam in Yorkville is not scheduled for removal or any modifications.

Yorkville is seeking to join a class action lawsuit against chemical companies for potentially contaminating their drinking water with 'PFAS,' commonly known as forever chemicals. Yorkville receives its water from an underground aquifer which gets replenished from water permeating its soil from the Fox River watershed. Pictured, kayakers enjoy the rapids on the Fox River in downtown Yorkville. (Sandy Bressner)

Yorkville officials want to take a closer look at the safety of residents’ drinking water for potential forever chemicals.

The city was approached by a law firm leading a national class-action lawsuit against four chemical producing corporations, including 3M and DuPont, seeking compensation for contaminating several town’s public water systems with a group of chemicals known as PFAS.

The law firm of Gardiner, Kock, Weisberg & Wrona believes Yorkville is a good candidate for potentially recovering costs associated with damages to its public water drinking system and public wastewater system, according to city documents.

PFAS is an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Exposure to PFAS, components in chemical foams used to extinguish flammable liquids, may pose health concerns.

Yorkville regularly tests its aquifer water supply for PFAS, including last year. The city has not found any PFAS in its water and deep aquifer sources are typically not impacted by PFAS. However, the law firm is requesting Yorkville’s water undergo a more rigorous testing method established by the Environmental Protection Agency, called liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry.

It only takes four PFAS parts per trillion in drinking water to be deemed unsafe by EPA regulations.

The size of compensation Yorkville may receive depends upon the concentration of PFAS detected in its water. 3M has already settled $12.5 billion with public water suppliers across the country. While three other companies – Chemours, DuPont and Corteva – has settled an additional $1.19 billion combined.

To officially enter into agreement with the law firm and join the class action litigation, Yorkville’s city council must first approve the contract at their March 11 meeting.

Several municipalities across Illinois have agreed to join the class action litigation.

To be eligible, Yorkville must perform tests on their public water systems and submit their claims before the end of 2025, according to documents prepared by the law firm.

In April 2024, the EPA enacted the nation’s first drinking water standards for PFAS. The standards mandate that all municipalities across the country remedy and prove their water carries less than four parts per trillion of the most dangerous PFAS by 2029.

However, the Trump Administration announced in January 2025, that it was directing the EPA to pause the pending plans to regulate PFAS in waste water. Several environmental organizations plan to take legal action against the Trump Administration’s moves.

The Trump Administration is expected to eventually bring back regulations against PFAS. However, the regulations may allow higher levels of PFAS than the standards under Biden, according to legal analysts at Clyde & Co, which have a Chicago-based office.

The legal analysts are not expecting the changes in EPA regulations to have any impact on the class action settlements against 3M and DuPont.

If Yorkville receives any settlement compensation in the litigation, the hired law firm is entitled to one-third the financial amount of the award plus attorney fees. Yorkville is not on the hook to pay the law firm if they do not receive any award funding.