The number of military sites with confirmed PFAS contamination continues to grow. An additional 59 Department of Defense (DoD) military installations with PFAS contaminated soil, groundwater, and surface water is now confirmed and added to a rapidly expanding list. The addition of these DoD installations brings the number of U.S. military bases and facilities with confirmed PFAS contamination to 385, according to a recent report published by the Environmental Working Group. In addition to these 385 installations with confirmed PFAS contamination, there are another 294 DoD installations that are suspected to have PFAS groundwater contamination.
DoD records indicate PFAS levels at the 59 installations ranging from 3.4 parts per trillion (ppt) to 870,000 ppt in the bases’ soil and water. Currently, there are no federal limits on PFAS in soil or water, but some states have moved to limit PFAS in drinking water to levels as low as 6 ppt to protect our human health.
“Every time we test for PFAS, these forever chemicals are detected,” said Jared Hayes, EWG policy analyst. “I expect we’ll soon be confirming more military sites polluted with PFAS.”
The reports revealed PFAS detections in soil or groundwater in 34 states across the country. As noted, the highest rate of groundwater contamination was found in Arkansas, at the Little Rock Air Force Base. Four additional sites were noted to have very high levels of groundwater contamination, including: McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, and Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station in South Carolina. High PFAS detections were found at the Washington Navy Yard, in Washington, D.C., and the Air Force Academy, in Colorado.
Merit Laboratories is a leading national PFAS environmental laboratory, analyzing drinking water, soil, wastewater, groundwater, and other sample matrices, including biosolids and sludge. Analytical methods performed by Merit for PFAS include drinking water by EPA 533, EPA 537.1, and EPA 537 rev. 1.1, biosolids by ASTM D7968-17 with Isotopic Dilution, and soil, wastewater, groundwater, and surface water by ASTM D7979-19 with Isotopic Dilution and ASTM D7968-17.