military

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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.

In the last few years, the military stopped using two ingredients in the foam – PFOA and PFOS – two of the deadliest varieties of the chemicals known as per – and poly fluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS). The DOD has been in a rush to incinerate old fire-fighting foams containing the two chemicals.

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.

The 13,164-acre Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station site is located in Havelock, North Carolina, and includes an active U.S. Marine Corps installation – Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point. It opened in 1942. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed the site on the Superfund program’s National Priorities List (NPL) in 1994 because of contaminated groundwater, soil, sediment and surface water resulting from the installation’s operations. More recently, nearby private residential water wells have tested positive for PFAS, prompting the beginning of an extensive investigation into the root cause at the base in 2018.

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.

In the 1960s, researchers from the U.S. Navy Research Laboratory began testing a new class of firefighting foam that could rapidly extinguish fuel fires. The foams, dubbed aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), were a boon to firefighters. Special perfluorinated chemicals gave AFFF unique hydrophobic and surfactant properties, allowing it to rapidly seal over burning fuel and prevent reignition once a blaze had been extinguished. By the 1970s, AFFF was in use at most military bases, airports, refineries, and many civilian fire departments around the world.

Orange County, California water districts are considering a massive lawsuit over PFAS contamination of the water supply, although they’re not likely to target the largest polluter – the US military. Instead, they’ll probably go after 3M and DuPont and a handful of other companies that manufacture PFAS products. The municipal water folks, who have been serving PFAS-tainted water to the public for years, are now faced with a $1 billion clean-up bill and they are looking for someone to pay for it.

We wore gloves but no masks. I’m glad we worked outside under a canopy. I don’t know what affect the toluene had on me. I breathed it in all day for almost a year.