![]() ![]() military is in the midst of an expensive effort to replace older foam with a newer formulation that contains only slightly tweaked versions of the same problematic compounds. While some of the precise formulations that caused the contamination are off the table, the U.S. Yet even as the Army, Navy, and Air Force have begun the slow process of addressing the contamination, which is expected to cost upwards of $2 billion, the Department of Defense isn’t abandoning this line of chemicals. (PFOA and PFOS are just the two best-known examples of the much larger class of PFAS molecules.) Because mounting research links these chemicals with a host of health problems, including kidney, testicular, bladder, and prostate cancer, as well as immune, reproductive, and hormonal dysfunction, the contamination amounts to a “seminal public health challenge,” as Patrick Breysse, director of the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health, recently described it. Chemicals in the foam, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have seeped into water in and around those bases. The foam has been used on hundreds of bases around the country since at least the early 1970s to put out emergency blazes and, far more often, to douse fires purposefully set to prepare firefighters for those emergencies. ![]() The former Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster, Penn., and nearby Willow Grove, a joint military base, are both contaminated with multiple chemicals, including PFOS from toxic firefighting foam.Ĭontamination from the military’s use of firefighting foam, or AFFF, isn’t limited to Whidbey Island. “They’re just hoping this will die down, and people will get used to living with contaminated water.”Īccording to a statement issued by Anderson, “Navy officials at NAS Whidbey Island, Navy Region Northwest and Naval Facilities Engineering Command Northwest are fully committed to the timely and successful cleanup of PFAS contamination, and will be involved until all required actions are complete.” ![]() Swanson, who also has prostate issues, felt that the Navy didn’t share his urgency about cleaning up the chemicals. “What the Navy is doing makes no sense,” said Steven Swanson, a retired physician living near Farnsworth whose private well contained 440 ppt of PFOA. But many on the island feel the response is an inadequate fix to the contamination that has upended many of their lives and decreased their property values. Ben Anderson said the Navy plans to continue providing bottled water and ultimately provide a clean water source to all affected families. “I don’t know what was related,” he said.Īfter testing their wells, the Navy provided Farnsworth and several of his neighbors whose wells tested positive for PFOS and PFOA with clean water. The realization that he and his wife had been exposed to the chemicals, which have been linked to prostate cancer and thyroid diseases, cast the struggles they have had over the past years with these very diseases in a new light. “We feel like we’re hostage here,” he said recently. Suddenly, a place that had been a haven felt more like a trap. ![]() One chemical, PFOS, was present at 3,800 parts per trillion, more than 54 times a safety standard set by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2016.īecause of the contamination, Farnsworth worried that he wouldn’t be able to sell his house - and decided not to put it on the market. But last February, he discovered a toxic side to the Navy’s presence in his life: His well, which he had used to water his fruit trees, cook, and fill his children’s and grandchildren’s glasses over the years, tested positive for three chemicals that had apparently seeped in from foam used for firefighting on the base. Until this summer, Farnsworth, who retired from the Navy in 2007, had been planning to sell it and move to Oklahoma to live near his grandchildren.Īfter a 30-year career, Farnsworth has an enduring love for the Navy. His home, which he recently had appraised for $469,000, is less than a mile down a fir-tree lined road from a sandy beach. In the 22 years he’s lived on Whidbey, where he served as a command master chief at the Naval Air Base, Farnsworth, 61, has regularly crabbed and fished for salmon and enjoyed fruit from his own trees. VWR will support you from the latest life science products to the guaranteed purity of organic building blocks.A bout an hour north of Seattle at the northern edge of Puget Sound, Whidbey Island is quiet, forested, and, in Bob Farnsworth’s neighborhood, idyllic. A strong, vibrant research and development group is the lifeblood of all industries. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |