water

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.

This article has two parts. The first examines how the Patuxent River Naval Air Station (Pax River) used toxic firefighting foam in fire-fighting exercises near the beach at Hog Point for years that resulted in PFAS poisoning oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. The second part addresses the state’s response to recent citizen concerns regarding contamination by the Navy and plans by the Maryland Department of the Environment to test oysters near Pax River and its Webster Field Annex in St. Inigoes, Maryland.

The Army has revealed that two highly toxic chemicals, PFOS and PFOA were recently found in the groundwater at the old Fort Ord, near Salinas, California at 560 parts per trillion, (ppt), which is 8 times higher than the EPA’s advisory level of 70 ppt. The chemicals are known to contribute to testicular, liver, breast, and kidney cancers, as well as a host of childhood diseases and abnormalities in the developing fetus.

Pax River routinely used aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) in fire-fighting exercises and in fire suppression systems in buildings throughout the base. The foams contained carcinogens that were allowed to leach into the county’s groundwater. The Navy has known of the deadly impact these substances have on human health since the 1970’s but continued to use them. In recent years, flourine-free foams (3F) have been developed that have proven to be every bit as effective as AFFF. They are used throughout much of the world.

A fire suppression system in an aircraft hangar discharged a massive volume of toxic firefighting foam from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa on April 10.

Residents of Okinawa, Japan held a well-attended conference at Tedako Hall in Urasoe on March 6, 2020 to listen to an address by SAKURAI Kunitoshi. The title of the event was “A Citizens Gathering to Protect the Lives of People from PFAS-Polluted Water.” Sakurai sounded an alarm over the contamination of the island’s water system by U.S. military bases.

The Pentagon now admits that 651 military sites are contaminated with per- and poly fluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS), a 62 percent increase from its last count of 401 sites in August, 2017. See the DOD’s latest addition of 250 contaminated locations organized in a logical fashion by our friends at the Environmental Working Group.

On September 10, 2018 the Lahontan Regional Water Board tested the well water of the home owned by Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Culberton located at 18399 Shay Road in Victorville, California. The water was found to contain high levels of 25 separate PFAS chemicals, several that are known to be human carcinogens. Culberton’s home is a few hundred feet from the eastern boundary of the shuttered George Air Force Base.

On February 6, 2020 the California State Water Resources Control Board lowered its  “Response Level” to 10 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and 40 ppt for PFOS. Under a new California law (Assembly Bill 756), if a water system exceeds the response levels for these carcinogens, the system is required to take the water source out of service or provide public notification within 30 days of the confirmed detection.  Previously, the response level was 70 ppt for the total concentration of the two contaminants combined.