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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."
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WHO Drops Weak PFAS Guidelines and Starts Anew After Criticism Over Industry Influence
"This is unprecedented, but the WHO got unprecedented criticism," an expert said after the agency changed course on drinking water guidelines.
Aug 14, 2024
The World Health Organization has scrapped its draft guidelines for "forever chemicals" in drinking water and restarted scientific review following criticism that its previous process was unduly influenced by industry-linked science, The Guardianreported Wednesday.
Leading scientists and public health experts from around the world had for the last two years called on the WHO to reverse course after the organization released draft guidelines they deemed to be far too weak to protect human health. Regulators in the United States and the European Union now have much stricter standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) than those the WHO was proposing.
WHO guidelines are consequential because regulators in many countries use them to set standards, and they can be cited in industry-backed lawsuits that argue that a national or subnational regulatory standard is too strict.
The WHO's reversal was highly unusual and showed the level of scrutiny its PFAS process was under, experts said.
"This is unprecedented, but the WHO got unprecedented criticism," Betsy Southerland, the former director of science and technology at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water, told The Guardian.
Southerland herself was one of the leading critics. Last year, she and Linda Birnbaum, the former director of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, wrote a commentary in Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal, in which they called the WHO's approach "stunning" and argued for extensive revision of the guidelines.
In November 2022, a group of more than 100 scientists wrote an open letter to the WHO calling for a reconsideration of the guidelines to include the raft of research on the dangers of PFAS to human health, more transparency about the process, and better enforcement of the organization's conflict-of-interest policy.
PFAS are a class of roughly 16,000 synthetic compounds that were developed by the chemical industry, including companies such as 3M and DuPont, in the mid-20th century. The compounds, which are called forever chemicals because they break down only very slowly, are found in many household and industrial products and are now found in the blood of most humans, raising public health concerns because their links to many types of cancer and other diseases.
Two of the most well-known and well-studied PFAS are perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate(PFOS), and it's these two compounds that have been the focal point of the WHO rulemaking process. The WHO proposed guidelines of limits of 100 parts per trillion for the two compounds—well above the 4 ppt the EPA recently instituted, based on research showing there was "no safe level of exposure" to the contaminants—citing unclear research and inadequate filtration systems for PFOA and PFOS removal at very low levels.
Critics said those arguments came from flawed reasoning and research. For example, the WHO had, in a key document, repeatedly cited the work of Michael Dourson, a controversial toxicologist whom then-President Donald Trump had named to lead the EPA's chemical safety division in 2017 but who ultimately ended up in another position, due to criticism over his ties to industry. The New York Times that year published emails Dourson had exchanged with the American Chemistry Council, a lobby group, that showed a close relationship.
Dourson told The Guardian that the work that he and other scientists whom the WHO cited in its 2022 draft guidelines did was independent of industry influence and that the guidelines had been sound, given the uncertainty about PFAS science.
But Birnbaum told the newspaper that invoking uncertainty and casting doubt on the science is an industry tactic. That's one of the approaches being used in legal challenges to the EPA's stricter rules.
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Eating One Freshwater Fish Equals a Month of Drinking Water With 'Forever Chemicals': Study
"The extent that PFAS has contaminated fish is staggering," said the lead researcher, advocating for "a single health protective fish consumption advisory for freshwater fish across the country."
Jan 17, 2023
Yet another study on Tuesday raised the alarm about the dangers of "forever chemicals," revealing that eating just one locally caught freshwater fish in the continental United States can be equivalent to drinking contaminated water for a month.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widely called forever chemicals because they persist in the human body and environment for long periods. Despite public health concerns, the manufactured chemicals have been used in products ranging from firefighting foam and waterproof clothing to nonstick pans and food packaging.
"These test results are breathtaking."
Duke University and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) researchers analyzed data for over 500 fish fillet samples collected across the country from 2013-15 for a pair of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitoring programs: the National Rivers and Streams Assessment and the Great Lakes Human Health Fish Fillet Tissue Study.
"Identifying sources of PFAS exposure is an urgent public health priority," said study co-author and EWG senior scientist Tasha Stoiber in a statement.
"PFAS contaminate fish across the U.S., with higher levels in the Great Lakes and fish caught in urban areas," she noted. "PFAS do not disappear when products are thrown or flushed away. Our research shows that the most common disposal methods may end up leading to further environmental pollution."
Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) contributed significantly to the high levels in the samples. U.S. manufacturers have largely phased out that PFAS, but it has been used in firefighting foam and was a main component of Scotchgard, a fabric protector by 3M—which announced last month that it plans to exit the PFAS market by the end of 2025.
As the new study states:
The two datasets indicate that an individual's consumption of freshwater fish is potentially a significant source of exposure to perfluorinated compounds. The median level of total targeted PFAS in fish fillets from rivers and streams across the United States was 9,500 ng/kg, with a median level of 11,800 ng/kg in the Great Lakes. PFOS was the largest contributor to total PFAS levels, averaging 74% of the total.
"These test results are breathtaking," said Scott Faber, EWG's senior vice president for government affairs. "Eating one bass is equivalent to drinking PFOS-tainted water for a month."
Specifically, the researchers calculated that eating one 8 oz. serving of fish is equivalent to consuming one month of drinking water with PFOS at 48 parts per trillion (ppt), which is 2,400 times the interim U.S. EPA health advisory.
"People who consume freshwater fish, especially those who catch and eat fish regularly, are at risk of alarming levels of PFAS in their bodies," said co-author and EWG senior scientist David Andrews. "Growing up, I went fishing every week and ate those fish. But now when I see fish, all I think about is PFAS contamination."
\u201cOur new paper on high PFAS levels in freshwater fish across the U.S. \n\nshould be a bigger part of the national conversation on PFAS exposure \n\nlevels hundreds of times over those in FDA fish sampling\n\nrelease:\nhttps://t.co/OPBGm9rYI8\n\npaper:\nhttps://t.co/OceSpyc37E\u201d— David Andrews (@David Andrews) 1673962922
The study stresses that "the exposure to chemical pollutants in freshwater fish across the United States is a case of environmental injustice that especially affects communities that depend on fishing for sustenance and for traditional cultural practices."
While the study was published in the journal Environmental Research, EWG's website features an interactive map that details the key findings nationwide.
The researchers found that the median levels of total PFAS in freshwater fish were 278 times higher than those in commercial fish tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2019-22.
"It's incredible how different they are," Andrews toldThe Hill. According to the outlet:
Some commercially caught fish may be less contaminated because they are grown in controlled aquaculture environments, Andrews explained. Meanwhile, large-scale ocean fishing often occurs farther offshore, where PFAS pollution would be more diluted, he added.
Andrews acknowledged, however, that the data on commercially caught fish is much more recent than the freshwater contamination figures.
He also recognized that with the industrial phaseout of PFOS production, the pollution "levels in rivers and streams do seem to be decreasing, which is important."
"At the same time, the levels are still so high that any fish consumption likely impacts [human blood] serum levels," Andrews said. "But they are moving in the right direction, which I think is some good news, at least in terms of the rivers and streams."
Despite some progress—including small steps last year by the EPA—the researchers and others pointed to the findings as evidence of the need for further action on PFAS.
"The extent that PFAS has contaminated fish is staggering," said lead researcher Nadia Barbo, a graduate student at Duke. "There should be a single health protective fish consumption advisory for freshwater fish across the country."
\u201cThanks to my friends at @ewg for this important new research on PFAS exposures from fish. We @seneca_lake @riverkeeper asked @NYSDEC to develop fish consumption standards for PFAS when we commented on the proposed PFAS guidance values! @BasilSeggos\u201d— Jill Witkowski Heaps (@Jill Witkowski Heaps) 1673970352
EWG's Faber declared that "for decades, polluters have dumped as much PFAS as they wanted into our rivers, streams, lakes, and bays with impunity. We must turn off the tap of PFAS pollution from industrial discharges, which affect more and more Americans every day."
"The EPA needs to move swiftly to set regulations for the industries most likely to be dumping PFAS into the environment," he added. "Downstream communities especially have suffered the consequences of unregulated PFAS discharges for far too long."
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