Navy

The Naval Air Station Patuxent River in southern Maryland has continued to expand, contributing to rapid population growth in the surrounding area. There are approximately 17,500 military, civilian, contractors and nonappropriated fund personnel that work at the Naval Air Station on a normal day. But with expansion comes higher scrutiny on environmental impacts, and Patuxent River NAS has definitely made an impact.

Moffett Naval Air Station in California is a 1,500-acre site located in Moffett Field, California. Moffett Field is located 35 miles south of San Francisco and approximately 1 mile south of San Francisco Bay in Santa Clara County, California. It was purchased in 1931 for one dollar, according to records, and was commissioned in 1933 as a naval air station to support a “lighter-than-air” (LTA) program (“Moffett Federal Airfield” – GlobalSecurity.org 2012). In 1991, Moffett Field was recommended for closure under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.  

Enewetak is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with its 850 people forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its land area totals less than 5.85 square kilometres (2.26 sq mi), not higher than 5 metres and surrounding a deep central lagoon, 80 kilometres (50 mi) in circumference. It is the second-westernmost atoll of the Ralik Chain and is 305 kilometres (190 mi) west from Bikini Atoll. A total of 67 nuclear and atmospheric bombs were detonated on Enewetak and Bikini between 1946 and 1958. To put this in perspective, you would have to detonate 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years to match the explosive yield derived from these tests. The radioactivity left behind is palpable.

What do we know about the spread of the coronavirus on US Navy ships? For the most part, we know what the Navy tells us or confirms what we already know. We’re told the pandemic has spread to 13 ships and infected at least 1,370 sailors and civilian workers.

From 1985 to 2001, personnel at Naval Air Facility (NAF) Atsugi in Atsugi, Japan may have been exposed to environmental contaminants from off-base waste incinerators. The incinerators were shut down in May 2001.

This 1,200 acre site is comprised of the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove (NASJRB/WG) and the Willow Grove Air Reserve Station (WGARS), which are operating U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force installations, respectively, located in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Activities that generate, store, or dispose of hazardous waste at the facilities fall into four general categories: (1) aircraft maintenance; (2) base civil engineering; (3) fuel operation and (4) personnel training.

The 2,807-acre Alameda Naval Air Station is a closed Navy installation located on Alameda Island, adjacent to the city of Alameda. Solid wastes generated at the site were disposed of in two on-base landfills. In addition, various wells have recently tested at extremely high levels for PFAS contamination.

Jacksonville NAS is an active installation facing a variety of contamination issues both in the past, and in the present. The EPA placed the site on the Superfund program’s National Priorities List in 1989 because of contaminated soil, sediment, groundwater and surface water. More recently, the problem of high levels of PFAS in water at the base has come to the fore.

Site investigations found contamination in groundwater, surface water, sediments and soil at Naval Air Station Pensacola that could potentially harm people in the area. The site is currently still in remediation.

DDT is Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a banned insecticide. While we are uncertain of data on usage, it would not be surprising to learn if it was used at Yorktown in the past, as the chemical has shown up in soil at other bases like MCAS El Toro. Plus, some chemical components/derivatives appear in the chemical list below.