By Staff Reporter
BUFFALO — The Buffalo Water Board has sued 17 chemical and firefighting-foam companies over “forever chemicals” in Lake Erie. The water utility’s own testing shows one of those chemicals is already in the city’s treated water, at levels just under a federal limit that takes effect later this decade.
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 14 in Erie County Supreme Court, WKBW-TV first reported. It accuses manufacturers and suppliers of PFAS-based firefighting foam, the chemicals used in it, and the raw materials behind those chemicals of polluting the water the city draws at its intake in Lake Erie’s Emerald Channel. That water flows to the Colonel Francis G. Ward Pumping Station for treatment.
According to WKBW’s account of the complaint, the board alleges the products were “unreasonably dangerous” and that the companies knew or should have known the risks. Its claims include negligence, defective design, failure to warn, trespass and nuisance. The board wants the companies to pay for investigating, testing, treating and monitoring the water, plus remediation. It does not name a dollar figure.
What Buffalo’s own tests show
The complaint, as reported, does not say whether PFAS has reached Buffalo tap water at unsafe levels. The utility’s public reports fill in part of that picture.
Buffalo Water’s 2025 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report lists perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, among the contaminants detected in treated water. Samples taken from Jan. 14 to Oct. 20, 2025, ranged from 1.34 to 3.56 parts per trillion, with an average of 2.07. PFOA, the other most studied PFAS compound, does not appear among the detected contaminants.
Those PFOS readings meet New York’s standard of 10 parts per trillion. They are closer to the federal limit of 4.0 parts per trillion for PFOS that the Environmental Protection Agency set in 2024. The highest reading last year was about 89% of that federal ceiling.
The system serves about 278,000 people and treats more than 64 million gallons a day, according to the report. It is overseen by the Buffalo Water Board and managed by Veolia North America. In 2025 the average household water bill was about $885.
Washington keeps the limit, but adds time
The federal ceiling has survived a change in administrations. In May, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin kept the 4.0 parts-per-trillion limits for PFOA and PFOS. At the same time, he proposed letting some water systems request up to two more years to comply, pushing the deadline to April 2031. He also proposed rescinding newer limits on PFHxS, PFNA and GenX, along with a standard for mixtures of PFAS, saying they were adopted through a flawed process.
“The Biden administration cut corners and failed to follow the law,” Mr. Zeldin said. “We are fixing that error with standards water systems can actually implement and that will hold up to scrutiny, while addressing PFOA and PFOS, two of the best-studied PFAS with well-documented health impacts.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called PFAS contamination “a serious public health challenge that demands rigorous science, clear standards, and practical solutions.”
For a utility like Buffalo’s, a limit that stays in place means the expensive part is still coming: deciding whether to add treatment, and who pays for it.
Who should pay
Ratepayers or polluters? That is the central question of the lawsuit, and New York’s attorney general is pressing the same argument statewide. In July, Attorney General Letitia James sued 3M, DuPont, Chemours, Corteva and EIDP over PFAS in consumer products.
“For far too long, our communities have unfairly shouldered the costs of protecting people from these toxic forever chemicals and cleaning up their contamination,” Ms. James said then. “Big companies like 3M and DuPont knowingly sold toxic products that threatened New Yorkers’ health and polluted our environment for decades. It’s time for them to pay for the damage they caused.”
Major PFAS manufacturers have generally denied liability in such cases, including when they reached national settlements with public water systems. The Buffalo Water Board’s suit is limited to firefighting foam, which has historically been used at airports, military bases and fire-training sites. WKBW did not detail which sources around the lake the complaint identifies.
WKBW said it had reached out to the Water Board and to an industry group that represents firefighting-foam manufacturers for comment.
Questions the lawsuit raises
Several questions will matter to Buffalo households. Which companies are named, and did any of them already pay public water systems through the national firefighting-foam settlements of recent years? Did the Water Board receive any of that money? Will the city need new treatment, such as granular activated carbon, to stay under the federal limit? What would it cost, and would it show up on water bills before any damages are collected?
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked the Water Board, Buffalo Water and the attorney general’s office for comment and for a copy of the complaint. Any responses will be added to this story.
Residents can read the full water quality report at buffalowater.org. The Water Board usually meets on the second Wednesday of each month at 9 a.m. at 2 Porter Ave., according to the report.
Featured photo: The City of Buffalo’s Massachusetts Avenue Pumping Station. Photo by Andre Carrotflower via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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