Military bases with possible water contamination rise. Scott AFB is on the list.
The number of known military sites where cancer-linked firefighting foam may have contaminated groundwater across the United States has jumped to 651 from 401, and the cleanup bill will likely cost billions of dollars more than initially estimated, according to a new Pentagon report.
Scott Air Force Base revealed in February that water wells near the base may have been contaminated. Officials have begun contacting potentially affected residents within one mile of the base, and they could test more wells further away if contamination is found.
Much of the surrounding area is serviced by Illinois American Water, which draws drinking water from the Mississippi River. Spokeswoman Karen Cotton says the company regularly tests for contamination and the water it delivers to municipalities is safe.
The new report was directed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper as part of his focus on PFAS contamination and lists hundreds of additional locations, many of them Army National Guard sites, in all 50 states where area groundwater may have been contaminated by the chemical compound.
Unlike a 2018 report, the latest list does not document what levels of contamination have been found at the sites — in part because the Defense Department has not completed assessments for each location yet, Maureen Sullivan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for environment, said.
Sullivan emphasized that any location where drinking water was contaminated has already been addressed. The newest list adds all the locations where there is potential groundwater contamination and where the Pentagon would have to launch a multi-year effort to clean it up.
PFAS is a family of chemical compounds that are found in low levels in everyday household products, such as the non-stick coating on cooking pans, but is highly concentrated in the military’s firefighting foam. It has been linked to cancers, reproductive problems and birth defects.
As the number of impacted military sites has grown, so has the price tag for cleanup. In 2018, the Defense Department initially estimated the cleanup process would take up to 30 years and cost about $2 billion.
But just the initial steps to identify the locations and take action to remove or replace water sources where drinking water on base was found to be contaminated has already cost $750 million, Sullivan said in an interview with McClatchy.
Based on the number of new locations, it will cost $3 billion just to complete the first two stages of the federal government’s five-stage environmental cleanup process, Sullivan said. She expects costs will continue to rise, but could not provide a new estimate for the total cleanup.
“Each step becomes progressively more expensive because it requires a lot more engineering work,” Sullivan said during the interview with McClatchy at the Pentagon on Friday.
As the Defense Department begins to study the groundwater contamination in more depth, it will look at “where is the plume? How is it moving?” Sullivan said, referring to potential underground pools of PFAS contamination. Over time, those pools can seep into mainstream water sources. “It is a lot of engineering work, a lot of drilling wells and all of that which is expensive,” she said.
“Then you get to the remedy, which is even more expensive. We’re back here right now,” she said, pointing to a graphic in the new Defense Department report that described the cleanup phases, “and we’re at three billion.”
The military has used firefighting foam with the PFAS compounds to fight aircraft fires since the 1970s. When it was previously sprayed, the foam wasn’t cleaned up after use and the military let it drain into storm sewers or directly into the ground.
The foam is no longer used for training, but is still used to put out actual aircraft fires, because an effective substitute foam that does not have concentrations of the PFAS compounds has not yet been developed.
If a substitute is found, it could mean billions of dollars in additional spending to retrofit or replace military base firefighting trucks, aircraft hangars and foam systems on Navy ships, to clear out the residue of the old foam and substitute in new foam.
In the report, the Defense Department estimated it would cost $600 million to retrofit, or up to $6 billion to replace, all of its 3,000 aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicles.
This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 2:26 PM.
