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In 2016, Tony Spaniola received a message informing him that his family was not allowed to drink water from the well at his lake house in Oscoda, Michigan. Over decades, the Air Force had sprayed thousands of gallons of firefighting foam on the ground at Wurtsmith Air Force Base, which closed in 1993. These chemicals eventually leached into the ground and began contaminating groundwater.
Alarmed, Spaniola began investigating the problem. “The more I looked, the worse it got,” he said. Two years ago, his concerns led him to co-found the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network. The coalition of residents and activists is working to help polluters, such as the military and a factory that makes waterproof shoes, clean up the “forever chemicals” they left behind.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of nearly 15,000 fluorinated chemicals that have been used since the 1950s to make things like clothing and food containers oil- and water-repellent. They are also used in firefighting foam. These chemicals do not break down over time and have contaminated everything from drinking water to food. Research has linked them to cancer, heart and liver problems, developmental problems and other ailments.
DOD to refocus on ‘forever chemicals’ near Michigan military base
The U.S. Department of Defense, or DOD, is one of the largest users of firefighting foam in the country and says 80% of active and decommissioned bases need to be cleaned. Some locations, such as Wurtsmith, recorded concentrations more than 3,000 times higher than what the agency previously considered safe.
Today, the EPA considers it unsafe to be exposed to virtually any amount of PFOA and PFOS, two of the most harmful substances under the PFAS umbrella. Earlier this month, it implemented the nation’s first PFAS drinking water regulations, including limiting exposure to them to the lowest observable limit. As of April 19, the agency also designated these two compounds as “hazardous substances” under the federal Superfund law, making it easier to force polluters to bear the costs of cleaning them up.
Compliance with these regulations means that almost all of the 715 military sites and surrounding communities under investigation for contamination by the Department of Defense will likely need to be remediated. Lengthy cleanup efforts at more than 100 PFAS-contaminated bases already designated as Superfund sites, such as Wurtsmith, reveal some of the challenges ahead.
“The crux of the issue is: how quickly are you going to clean it up and what actions are you going to take in the meantime to make sure people aren’t exposed?” said Spaniola.
In a statement to Grist, the DOD says the plan is to follow a federal cleanup law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), to investigate contamination and determine short- and long-term cleanups basis of risks. But many advocates, including Spaniola, say the process is too slow and that short-term solutions have been insufficient.
The problem started decades ago. In the 1960s, the Department of Defense partnered with 3M, one of the largest manufacturers of PFAS chemicals, to develop a foam called AFFF that can extinguish fires at high temperatures. The PFAS acts as a surfactant, making the material spread faster. By the 1970s, every military base, naval ship, civilian airport and fire station regularly used AFFF.
In the decades that followed, millions of liters flowed into the environment. According to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG), 710 military sites across the country and its territories have known or suspected PFAS contamination. Internal studies and memos show that not long after 3M and the U.S. Navy patented the foam in 1966, 3M learned that its PFAS products could harm laboratory animals and accumulate in the body.
During a 2022 Senate committee hearing, Oscoda residents testified about the health consequences, such as tumors and miscarriages, of the PFAS contamination in Wurtsmith. In 2023, Michigan reached a settlement after suing numerous manufacturers, including 3M and Dupont. Today, thousands of victims across the country are suing the chemical’s manufacturers. While some organizations and communities have tried to hold the military financially responsible for this pollution — farmers in several states recently filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in South Carolina — the Defense Department says it is not legally liable.
Congressional pressure on the Pentagon to clean up these sites has increased. In 2020, the National Defense Authorization Acts required PFAS-laden firefighting foam to be phased out by October 2023. Since that law’s passage, Congress has also directed the department to publish the findings of drinking and groundwater tests on and around bases.
The results showed nearly 50 locations with extremely high contamination levels, and hundreds more with levels above what was then the EPA’s health advisory. After further pressure from Congress, the Army announced plans to conduct interim cleanups at three dozen locations, including a water filtration system in Oscoda.
According to a report from the Environmental Working Group, it took an average of almost three years for the Department of Defense to complete testing at these high-contamination sites. It took just as long to draw up emergency cleanup plans. Today, 14 years after PFAS contamination was discovered at Wurtsmith, the first site tested, no site has moved out of the ‘investigation phase’ and a comprehensive plan has yet to be in place to begin permanent remediation on any basis.
The Defense Department says any location where a PFAS contamination exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s previous guideline of 70 parts per trillion is found will be remediated immediately, such as bottled water and filters on faucets. If a site is found to be contaminated, the department has 72 hours to provide residents with alternative water sources, according to the EPA.
After six years of working on various cleanup initiatives, Spaniola says waiting for military action has taken its toll on the people of Oscoda. “The community had a very good relationship with the military,” he said. “I have seen the change from a very trusting relationship to a terrible one.”
Dozens of states have imposed additional requirements for the treatment of PFAS in municipal water systems, but such efforts are often overlooked by private well owners. That puts thousands of people at risk, as in Michigan, where about 1.5 million people drink water from contaminated wells, 25% of residents rely on private water sources.
Troops at twenty bases are exposed to toxic chemicals in drinking water
Nationally, the Environmental Working Group has found unsafe water in wells near 63 military bases in 29 states. Although the DOD has tested private wells, it has not published the total number of wells tested or identified which of them need to be cleaned up.
“For those on well water, it’s a real problem until there’s some recognition of some kind of responsibility for the contamination,” said Daniel Jones, deputy director of the Michigan State University Center for PFAS Research. He recommends cleaning jobs near Grayling, Michigan. “It kind of comes down to who has deep enough pockets to pay for the things that need to be done.”
The EPA’s recent decision to designate PFOA and PFOS as “hazardous substances” under the federal Superfund law is unlikely to deliver quick financial relief to communities, even as the agency has made $9 billion available to private well owners and small public water systems to address pollution. Whether that support reaches private well owners is up to individual states, which can work with EPA regional offices to develop project plans before applying for grants to secure funding.
The agency has established a five-year period for water systems to test for PFAS and install filtration equipment before enforcing compliance with the newly tightened levels. Although EPA says the new PFOA and PFOS regulations do not immediately trigger an investigation into whether they qualify as Superfund sites on the National Priorities List, decisions for each site will be made on a case-by-case basis.
“It’s a huge public health victory, it’s extremely important and it can’t come soon enough, especially for military communities that have been exposed for decades,” said Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group. Benesh hopes the new rules will prompt the Defense Ministry to take action more quickly.
This article originally appeared in Grist bee https://grist.org/accountability/us-military-bases-teem-with-pfas-theres-still-no-firm-plan-to-clean-them-up/.
Grist is an independent, nonprofit media organization dedicated to telling stories about climate solutions and an equitable future. More information at Grist.org.
