SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
pfas
Local Fears Grow After Major PFAS Spill at Former Navy Base in Maine
Forever chemicals were stored in tanks at an airport at more than 10,000 times the federal limit.
Aug 27, 2024
Maine officials in recent days have downplayed the public health risk posed by an accidental discharge of firefighting foam containing the toxic substances known as "forever chemicals" over a week ago, but initial tests on Monday revealed startlingly high concentrations of the chemicals near the airport where the spill occurred.
The state found that perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), a type of synthetic perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that's been widely used to make firefighting foam and is still in circulation despite being phased out of production, was present in a chemical tank at Brunswick Executive Airport at a level of 3.2 billion parts per trillion (ppt).
The Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC) advised the public not to consume freshwater fish from Mere Brook, Merriconeag Stream, Picnic Pond, and the site 8 stream near the airport, which is a former Naval Air Station.
The chemical tank fed firefighting foam concentrate into a fire suppression system that malfunctioned at Hangar 4 at the airport on August 19, sending the toxic foam into a nearby parking lot, down sewage and storm drains, and floating through the air at Brunswick Landing, a residential and business development in the area. About 1,500 gallons of the foam concentrate spilled.
The tests indicated a level of PFOS well over federal and state limits. Maine requires remedial action when PFOS is found at a level of 1,000 ppt in groundwater and 210 ppt for milk—while the federal drinking water standard is less than 4 ppt.
Samples taken at nearby drainage ponds found PFOS concentrations of a little over 1 million parts per million where the foam entered and 701 ppt where it would leave the ponds.
"In terms of risk, the next step is figuring where that water is going, and if it has reached a public or private drinking water source."
Exposure to PFOS, which are among the substances known as "forever chemicals" because they don't break down easily, have been linked to compromised immune and cardiovascular functions, decreased fertility, and several types of cancer—even in trace amounts, let alone the levels found after the spill.
Environmental toxicology expert Kurt Pennell of Brown University told the Portland Press Herald that officials would likely need to treat the water in the highly contaminated drainage ponds and determine whether the ponds now pose a risk to the public.
"In terms of risk, the next step is figuring where that water is going, and if it has reached a public or private drinking water source," Pennell told the Press Herald.
Officials are planning to continue taking samples from the drainage ponds, nearby water bodies, and Harpswell Cove—the part of Casco Bay where the ponds discharge—but despite the Maine CDC's warnings about freshwater fish in the Brunswick Landing area, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said in a statement last Friday that it does not believe nearby water wells will be impacted.
"We understand the concerns expressed by the community given the foam's visibility," the DEP said. "The Maine DEP and the Environmental Protection Agency have been studying the former Brunswick Naval Air Station for 30 years and are familiar with hydrogeology on the site. Although the site has a history of PFAS contamination, DEP continues to believe that the recently released material will not impact any nearby wells. The Brunswick-Topsham Water District has confirmed that the public water supply has not been impacted by this incident."
The Press Herald reported that because the public water district "taps distant aquifers" and the "groundwater under Hangar 4 flows away from nearby residential wells," people who rely on the area's water supply are not at risk.
The water district has increased its PFAS testing since the spill, and initial results are expected in September.
The Press Herald's editorial board on Sunday condemned state officials—both for allowing PFOS-laden foam to be stored at Brunswick Executive Airport at more than 10,000 times the federal limit, and the "conflicting and confusing" response to one of the country's largest firefighting foam spills in 30 years, marked by a "flamboyant" absence of transparency:
The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, the body created by the state to redevelop what is the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, said Monday that the cause of the spill remained under investigation. At the same time, state and town officials were reporting that the fire suppression system in the hangar in question had malfunctioned.
In a subsequent statement, the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority said it was committed to "addressing the cleanup with the utmost urgency and transparency." It was heavily criticized for not adequately notifying local environmental organizations, businesses, or the broader public.
Brunswick officials referred reporters calling about the spill to the state, while state environmental officials would not release information about past forever chemical discharges at the airport—of which there have been several—and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "referred questions back to the state, even though the property is a contaminated Superfund site that requires long-term EPA monitoring and remediation," reported the Press Herald.
While state officials offered conflicting messages, Jared Hayes, a policy analyst with the public health watchdog Environmental Working Group, said the spill would "likely create a long-lasting contamination problem" in the area.
"Neighbors should be concerned," Hayes told the Press Herald. "So, yeah, this is a problem. It's a pretty big problem."
State toxicologist Andy Smith acknowledged that the harm PFOS can cause when people inhale foam, which was visible blowing around Brunswick Landing after the spill, is not yet known.
Brunswick officials announced they would host a public information session on Thursday, with state lawmakers as well as representatives from the Maine CDC and the DEP present.
The Press Herald editorial board accused state officials of responding to the disaster so far with the words: "Best of luck with that."
"Best of luck to our water supplies, ponds, brooks, rivers, beaches, and coves, now tainted by these chemicals which we know all too well to have potentially disastrous effects on human and animal health—even in trace quantities," wrote the editors.
"Just how much of this substance is there in Maine?" they added. "Who ensures that it is stored safely and securely? Who is liable for any escape of firefighting foam concentrate and PFAS-laden substances like it? What is the funding formula for the multimillion-dollar cleanup of incidents like this? What is the official protocol for testing exposed drinking water wells, relevant stormwater outfalls, and more? Where else has this happened?"
"The questions go on and on," wrote the board, "and we urgently need answers to all of them."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Documents Reveal Plan to Fight PFAS Regulations With Industry-Backed Research
"They're trying to undermine the EPA's science, make it sound like there's uncertainty where there isn't, and make it sound like there's disagreement within the scientific community where there's not," an expert said.
Aug 27, 2024
An industry-friendly research group has set forth plans to bolster legal challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency's PFAS regulations for drinking water by conducting what experts say is biased research, The Guardianreported Tuesday.
Documents obtained by the newspaper show that the Ohio-based research group Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), led by controversial toxicologist Michael Dourson, aims to publish peer-reviewed papers by the end of 2024 that can help industry legal challenges to drinking water rules that the EPA finalized in April.
Dourson, some of whose research funding comes from industry groups, sent a fundraising email in July laying out his plans. "Can we count on your group to make a tax-deductible donation to get our team to publish a set of papers by the end of 2024?" he asked.
TERA organized a conference in October at which a pro-industry plan for challenging the EPA's PFAS regulations was laid out—to attack the statistical methods used by the agency and emphasize scientific uncertainty—a conference document obtained by The Guardian shows.
Current and former EPA experts who viewed the email and the conference document sharply criticized Dourson's approach to research on PFAS, which are a set of roughly 16,000 synthetic compounds linked to cancer and a wide range of other serious health conditions.
Maria Doa, a former EPA risk assessment manager who's now a director at the Environmental Defense Fund, told The Guardian that TERA's plans were "not a valid approach to science."
"They're trying to undermine the EPA's science, make it sound like there's uncertainty where there isn't, and make it sound like there's disagreement within the scientific community where there's not," she said.
Experts compared the effort to undermine PFAS regulations with industry-funded science to similar efforts used by the tobacco industry in decades past.
"This is out of the playbook and it's a lot of the same quote-unquote scientists and same hired guns," Erik Olson, a director at the National Resources Defense Council, told The Guardian.
Penny Fenner-Crisp, a former EPA water division manager who worked with Dourson, told The Guardian that she was astounded by the straightforward bias on display in the documents.
"In my 22 years spent in three regulatory programs I came to understand the games [the industry] plays, but this one astonished me because it's unusual to be so blatant," she said.
The EPA regulations set a limit of 4 parts per trillion on two of the main types of PFAS, and up to 10 ppt for other types. Gourson, who previously worked for the EPA but has since shifted his approach and, as he puts it, learned to "honor industry's knowledge," has argued that the limits should be far higher. He and other scientists, some of whom have industry ties, published a study in December that supports a higher limit for a main type of PFAS.
The legal challenges to the EPA's water regulations come from water utilities and chemical manufacturers. At least one lawsuit was brought in part by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a lobby group that represents companies such as 3M and DuPont, which developed PFAS in the mid-20th century for use in consumer and industrial products, and reportedly hid knowledge of its toxic impacts and widespread distribution.
In the leaked email, Dourson said his forthcoming papers will be published in the first issue of a new journal that aims to "support" the legal challenges to PFAS regulations.
The stakes of the legal cases against the EPA's water rules are extremely high, and not just because of the direct impact they will have on hundreds of millions of Americans who may already have toxic PFAS in their drinking water. A victory for industry could also discourage further regulation of chemicals in drinking water.
"This is pivotal," Betsy Southerland, a former director of science and technology at the EPA's water division, told The Guardian, speaking about the legal defense of the PFAS rules established in April. "If a court strikes this down… then the EPA will say the bar is too high to ever regulate using the Safe Drinking Water Act."
Southerland toldThe Wall Street Journal in May that Dourson "produces biased science that cherry picks data."
Dourson was named to lead the EPA's chemical safety division in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump but withdrew himself from consideration for the position following criticism over his ties to industry. The New York Times at the time published emails Dourson had exchanged with the ACC that showed a close relationship.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Public Health Emergency': Report Calls for Multi-Agency Action to Address PFAS Crisis
"We're at a tipping point, where the next administration must act decisively to avert a public health catastrophe that could define the next decade."
Aug 15, 2024
Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy nonprofit, released a roadmap on Thursday calling for a comprehensive government program to address the PFAS contamination crisis facing the United States.
The EWG roadmap details the agency-by-agency response the group says is needed to deal with the environmental and public health threat posed by the nearly ubiquitous presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are linked to many cancers and other serious health conditions.
EWG's plan involves not just steps that should be taken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but also the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the departments of Agriculture, Defense, and Health and Human Services, and several other federal agencies.
Scott Faber, EWG's vice president of government affairs, said in a statement that PFAS contamination was "an unfolding disaster that demands immediate and unprecedented action."
"We're at a tipping point, where the next administration must act decisively to avert a public health catastrophe that could define the next decade," he said.
The contamination crisis from the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS is far from over, despite the Biden-Harris administration’s strides combating PFAS pollution. EWG has identified steps the next administration should take to build on successes so far. https://t.co/BQUUNnUTdI
— EWG (@ewg) August 15, 2024
EWG commended the Biden administration for the steps that it's taken to deal with the PFAS contamination crisis. The White House put forth an eight-agency PFAS plan in October 2021 and has implemented key parts, most notably by setting strict national limits on PFAS in drinking water. That rule, finalized in April, faces legal challenges from industry groups.
PFAS are set of roughly 16,000 synthetic compounds that were developed by chemical companies for use in a wide range of products. They can enter the human body—where, as "forever chemicals," they accumulate in bones and organs—through drinking water, food, the skin, or the air. Most Americans have PFAS in their blood.
Reporting by Sharon Lerner, a ProPublica journalist who previously worked at The Intercept, has indicated that 3M and DuPont, two of the major PFAS producers, knew about the dangers and widespread distribution of PFAS but hid them from the public.
In April, the EPA designated two of the most common PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), as hazardous substances under the Superfund law—another move that EWG celebrated.
"But there's much more that must be done," according to the new roadmap, authored by John Reeder, EWG's vice president of federal affairs.
In the roadmap, Reeder, a former EPA deputy chief of staff, called for the agency to double its budget for PFAS—i.e., increase its funding request to Congress—and crack down on industrial discharges, among many other proposals. He also called on the FDA to ban the use of PFAS in food packaging and establish limits on their use in foods. For the Department of Defense, Reeder's plan includes giving defense communities safe water to drink—at least 100 military sites are known to have contaminated water—and end the use of PFAS in firefighting foam.
Such federal action will likely depend on the results of the presidential and congressional elections. Project 2025, a right-wing policy blueprint for a Republican administration, proposes deregulation of PFAS and funding cuts for key EPA functions. Experts inside and outside the agency toldThe Guardian late last month that a victory by Republican nominee Donald Trump would mean PFAS rules would become subject to a great deal of industry influence.
Meanwhile, the scale of the PFAS problem continues to become more clear. Data recently updated by the EPA shows that 7,457 U.S. drinking water locations have PFAS in their supply, putting much of the American population at risk, according to EWG. The EPA has found that there's "no safe level of exposure" to PFOA and PFOS.
"The sheer number of contaminated sites is a red flag that says we are facing a pervasive and devastating crisis," said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at EWG. "More than 130 million Americans are drinking water tainted with PFAS, putting them at risk of severe health issues. This is no longer just an environmental concern; it's a major public health emergency."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular