Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water Leave Military Families Reeling

The water at or around at least 126 military installations contains potentially harmful levels of chemicals, which have been linked to cancers and developmental delays for fetuses and infants.  These included 36 sites with drinking water contamination on-base, and more than 90 sites that reported either on-base or off-base drinking water or groundwater contamination.

The military, it turned out, had been leaching toxic chemicals into the water for decades....  the Defense Department has admitted that it allowed a firefighting foam to slip into at least 55 drinking water systems at military bases around the globe, sometimes for generations. This exposed tens of thousands of Americans, possibly many more, to per-andpolyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of man-made chemicals known as PFAS that have been linked to cancers, immune suppression and other serious health problems.

The military never alerted all of the people who drank polluted water, meaning some are still in the dark. When asked how many people were affected by contamination, Ms. Sullivan said she “couldn’t hazard a guess.”

As posted at Smart Dissent in early February, the Republican EPA was trying to ignore this enormous issue.

Though the presence of the chemicals has been known for years, an announcement last week from the Environmental Protection Agency for the first time promised regulatory action, a significant acknowledgment of the startling scope of the problem that drew outrage from veterans and others living in contaminated communities.

The admission drew some praise, but many said that it was not enough and that millions of people would keep ingesting the substances while a regulatory process plods along. “It should have been called an inaction plan,” said Judith Enck, a former E.P.A. regional administrator appointed by President Barack Obama.

This is a HUGE problem that ought to be broadcast loudly every day until addressed but of course almost no one knows about it.

PFAS are a broad class of chemicals developed in the 1940s. Because they repel grease and water, they have been used across industries for decades, often to prevent stains. They are placed in a dizzying array of products: food packaging, nonstick pans, clothing, furniture. They are also used to extinguish fires where petroleum-based explosions pose a danger.

But the chemicals move quickly through the earth and into water, where they persist indefinitely.  Some scientists have deemed them “forever chemicals,” and over the last two decades, a growing body of research has shown that the compounds meant to help us are likely hurting us.

All told, 10 million people could be drinking water laced with high levels of PFAS, according to Patrick Breysse, a top official at the federal Centers for Disease Control. Mr. Breysse has called the presence of the chemicals “one of the most seminal public health challenges” of the coming decades.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/military-water-toxic-chemicals.html