When the Thieves are Guarding the Treasure

VIEW FULL POST WITH GRAPHICS AND FORMATTING ON MY SUBSTACK

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. ~ Harper Lee (via Atticus Finch)

In an analysis of several industries (e.g. tobacco, coal, pesticides), social scientists cataloged different strategies used by these industries “to promote an agenda, often for monetary benefit, with consequences for environmental and public health,” or, more colloquially, to manufacture doubt. The scientists found that certain strategies were used across all the industries they evaluated. One such is “Influence Government/Laws,” which the authors describe as when a corporation seeks “inappropriate proximity to regulatory bodies” to encourage policies favorable to the industry. [LINK]

Regulatory agencies decide IF and WHAT to regulate and at WHAT LEVEL. They decide HOW regulation will be conducted, and HOW OFTEN something needs to be tested. Critically, regulatory agencies decide what data and whose expertise will be considered as they determine answers to those questions that best serve public and environmental health (does smoking cause lung cancer? does DDT reduce the survival of birds? do vaccines cause autism?). With this in mind, it’s obvious why an industry would want to influence agencies that regulate their products. And it’s obvious why a regulatory agency that has been compromised by industrial interests is an example of The Thief Guarding the Treasure. [I like this Thief/Treasure idiom better than the Fox/Henhouse. Foxes are evolutionarily programmed to pursue slow, clumsy birds. Thieves are humans, often motivated by greed, not survival.]

Thieves or foxes, treasure or hens, working to Influence Government/Laws is another strategy 3M employed to manufacture doubt and protect PFAS.

A 2003 memo shared amongst 3M executives lists Action Items resulting from an FC Meeting: “#5 Establish and strengthen dialogue with EPA’s ORD (Dr. Preuss) and management (C. Auer, S. Johnson) and other parties outside EPA who will be influential in PFOS and PFOA risk assessment processes and other science policy matters affecting FC’ s.”

Influential, not thoughtful or knowledgeable.

Further down the To Dos is the action: “#6 Develop a list of 3M and industry-preferred members for Science Advisory Panels for PFOS and PFOA risk assessment.” [#2604]

Not “accomplished” or “experienced” but industry-preferred.

Another document refers to a Priority Strategy, “Achieve neutral to positive regulatory agency outcomes: findings and actions”. [#1964]

One of the regulatory agencies closest to 3M was the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). 3M maintained active dialogue with the MPCA dating back at least to the 1950s [e.g. #1020, #1250]. When, just months after disclosing the biggest environmental crisis in the history of the company, 3M proposed one of their employees, Sheryl Corrigan, for the role of MPCA Commissioner and when the Republican Governor agreed, was 3M trying to Influence Government/Laws by seeking inappropriate proximity to regulatory bodies to encourage policies favorable to 3M? Hmmm.

On July 30, 2025, our local FOX9 affiliate (KMSP) aired a documentary set around a scientist who worked at the MPCA, Dr. Fardin Oliaei, and the PFAS research she conducted 2001-2006. Oliaei did some of the first public work characterizing PFAS contamination around Minnesota, from remote lakes and fish, to urban rivers, to suburban drinking water. Her research was shut down by leadership within the MPCA and the agency tried to silence her as she raised the alarm over the threat caused by 3M’s persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals, pervasive in the environment. In a 2006 congressional testimony Oliaei stated, “MPCA management has harassed me, reprimanded me, and threatened to take my livelihood away from me for trying to do the right thing. They abused their authority so much that they used the entire weight of state machinery to crush one individual.”[ FOX9] Eventually, Oliaei was forced to resign, filing a whistle blower complaint against the MPCA. She settled with the state for $325,000, a large chunk of which went to cover fees for her attorney. Oliaei’s story was originally reported in 2005 by MPR journalists Mike Edgerly and Sasha Aslanian of American Radio works [#2004] .

The head of “MPCA management” when Oliaei was being “harassed,” “reprimanded” and “threatened,” for her work on PFAS was 3M-nominated commissioner, Sheryl Corrigan. Formerly a mid-level manager at 3M, Corrigan was appointed to the post less than 9 months after 3M acknowledged that a suite of their PFAS chemicals were present widely in the blood of the general population, distributed throughout the food chain and broadly distributed in the environment [LINK, #1588, #2602]. Corrigan left the MPCA in 2006 and is now the Vice President of Environmental, Health and Safety and Director of Compliance at Koch Industries. The Koch family, of course, being the billionaire entity responsible for bank rolling far-reaching efforts to weaken environmental regulations, especially those concerning the Oil & Gas industry [LINK, LINK, LINK].

I cant do justice to Oliaei’s ordeal at and after her time at MPCA; but check out the FOX9/KMSP documentary for more of her story.

I had the opportunity to talk with Dr Oliaei recently (unless otherwise attributed, her quotes from that interview on Oct 26, 2025 are indicated in italics). It was interesting to share our PFAS stories and I was struck by both the similarities and the differences. I was leaving the world of PFAS research at 3M (2001) just when Oliaei was entering as a research scientist for the MPCA.

In May of 2000, 3M made public the fact that their chemicals were widespread in the population and the environment…my work at 3M led to that disclosure and Oliaei’s work provided a critical demonstration of the public health threat the disclosure revealed.

We both lived in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a *ground zero* for PFAS contamination, thanks to 3M’s PFAS manufacturing facility and multiple 3M PFAS landfills. The Twin Cities is also home to 3M headquarters. In 2000, 3M was one of Minnesota’s top 5 employers and an economic powerhouse in the state. 3M’s dual identity as Polluter and Employer created a challenging dynamic, pitting public health and clean drinking water against economic growth at a very personal level within our communities and neighborhoods.

Oliaei had been researching poly brominated diphenylethers when PFAS came to her attention in the early 2000s. Recognizing an emerging environmental and public health threat in PFAS, she decided to pivot her research accordingly. That’s when things got difficult.

I wanted to start working on PFAS and I gave my manager my proposal to do so. After a week or so, he told me that we would need to hold off on the PFAS research. I was told that the commissioner did not want to hear about research activities related to PFAS.

Oliaei continued to advocate for the importance of the work; she recalls several meetings with Corrigan that Oliaei arranged to discuss her proposal. Oliaei challenged Corrigan about the obstacles she was facing with her PFAS research. According to Oliaei, Corrigan didnt offer feedback until after the two had met several times:

She told me that MPCA was not a research organization and that I should leave and find another job if I wanted to do research….It didnt make sense to me, my job title was “Research Scientist 3.” We had been functioning as a research group assessing industrial releases of pollutants…and regulating their releases for years. We had a few PhDs in our group and we had meetings every week to discuss the fate and toxicity of unregulated pollutants….we were doing very complicated science. But for PFAS, the commissioner said ‘we are not a research organization’.

Oliaei reported that representatives from 3M came to the MPCA to meet with Oliaei and her managers. She recalls the 3M team telling her to back off on her work, assuring her that they would collect all the necessary data. “I told them, ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’ I looked at my managers and said: ‘Who is my boss here? I dont work for 3M.’ When my manager remained quiet, I walked out of the meeting.”

Talking with Oliaei, I noticed commonalities in our experiences collecting and disclosing data on 3M’s PFAS contamination. We both challenged the internal culture at our respective organizations, cultures that prioritized protecting 3M rather than the public. We both were scolded and intimidated for doing our research to the extent that we feared for our livelihood. We both felt manipulated by unseen hands within the hierarchy of our organizations. We both left our jobs suffering physically and emotionally from the work and our work environment - occupational PTSD. Ultimately, we both coped with our experiences by completely separating from our PFAS histories and avoiding the topic for years.

But there are significant differences in our experiences, notably, the nature of our employers. Oliaei was a research scientist at a government regulatory agency. I was a research scientist at a publicly-traded, for-profit chemical and manufacturing corporation.

The mission statement for the MPCA in July of 2001was:

...to help Minnesotans protect their environment. The agency assesses the state’s environmental status, provides regulatory approvals, acts on complaint and enforcement resolutions, and implements strategies that will protect and enhance public health and the state’s environment. LINK

In contrast, 3M’s mission statement in July of 2001 was unabashedly focused on products and profit:

“To be the most innovative enterprise and the preferred supplier of the products it produces.” [LINK]

I dont excuse 3M for decades of unethical, deceptive actions and cowardly decision-making pertaining to PFAS, leading to a global health and environmental crisis. But, considering 3M’s mission, at least there is a perverted consistency between the corporation’s stated priorities and actions: 3M existed to sell their products and thus defended them tenaciously. Although inexcusable, the resistance that I experienced doing PFAS research from within 3M was, in some ways, not surprising.

But the fierce opposition Oliaei experienced within the MPCA was completely antithetical to the purpose of the regulatory agency for which she worked. The juxtaposition between what Oliaei was hired to do as a Research Scientist 3 (“assess the state’s environmental status”) and what she was prohibited from doing (“hold off on PFAS research”), is stark and incomprehensible. Working for an agency dedicated to public health whose leadership prohibited you from assessing one of the state’s all-time biggest public health risks was a fundamental contradiction of purpose. The kind of contradictory behavior you’d expect when a Thief is Guarding the Treasure.

Oliaei stands out for her courage and her integrity, for her willingness to speak against a regulatory organization tasked to “enhance public health” that was, instead, prioritizing corporate interests. Oliaei paid a high price for her integrity, losing her job, her occupational stability and her scientific community. It’s one of those unsatisfying stories where the bad guys seem to get away with it. Was the 2002-2006 MPCA unusual, a rogue public health agency led by a former industry loyalist, masquerading as a champion for people and the environment, while protecting corporate interests? Well, no. Of course it wasnt unusual.

Consider Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, right now in 2025. The Thieves Guarding the Treasure on a national scale. Much like the MPCA in 2002, Trump’s EPA is ruled by individuals who spent their careers furthering the profits and power of chemical and oil companies. Like Oliaei, agency employees who call out the inconsistencies of the scientific regulatory process pay a heavy price for doing so:

The agency [EPA] put on administrative leave 139 employees who signed [the] “declaration of dissent” with agency policies under the Trump administration. The agency accused the employees of “unlawfully undermining” Trump’s agenda.

In a letter made public June 30, the employees wrote that the EPA is no longer living up to its mission to protect human health and the environment. The letter represented rare public criticism from [EPA] agency employees who knew they could face retaliation for speaking out…. LINK

What do we do when the collective Treasure of our public health is in the hands of Thieves, and those with the courage and integrity to speak are cast out?

Listen. Sometimes you cant hear them because the current administration speaks with such bluster, but scientists that understand the crisis within our health and environmental agencies are raising their voices, defending science and protecting the public. There are courageous scientists speaking with integrity in congressional testimony, social media posts, and at community meetings. Scientists that are mentoring, teaching and advocating; others who are protecting research so it cant be erased. There are scientists simply doing science, as they always have, with the focused pursuit of quality research, collecting data, collaborating, documenting, reviewing. Quiet or loud, the commitment to conduct good science perseveres.

I know government scientists that retired to avoid the ethical compromise of working for Thieves, who are using their freedom to speak out. Scientists early in their career paths and more economically vulnerable have moved to independent research organizations, continuing their science and reinforcing their networks even if they have temporarily been stripped of the power to influence regulations. Although less in those places where the Thieves are in charge, good science is still happening.

In the words of Barbara Kingsolver (or more specifically, those of her protagonist, Cody) in Animal Dreams:

“Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work--that goes on, and it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children’s bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don’t get lost.”

While the Thieves are Guarding the Treasure, this is what I choose to believe.

Kudos to Minnesota Public Radio and American Radio Works for telling Oliaei’s story in 2005 and to FOX9/KMSP for bringing it back in 2025. And kudos to all members of the press who continue to report on the manipulation and destruction of our public health agencies, calling out the Thieves, reminding us that public and environmental health are Treasures that belong to all of us.