WASHINGTON, DC — Two former Air Force bases in Michigan are on a “Filthy Fifty” list of sites where the U.S. Defense Department would have to expedite cleanup of toxic “forever chemical” contamination under new Congressional legislation.
Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda and K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base in the Upper Peninsula are among priority installations with toxic PFAS pollution marked for speedier cleanup under the bill package, which allocates $10 billion for remedial work nationwide and puts the Pentagon under a deadline schedule to complete construction.
“Filthy Fifty Act” and “Clean Water for Military Families Act” were introduced in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, June 8. The bills were introduced by Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, representing the two states with the most bases on the list.
Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters of Michigan are co-sponsors. A companion bill is also being introduced in the U.S. House.
“We have seen the harmful effects of these toxic chemicals in New York, California, and across the country,” said Gillibrand in a statement. “There is a clear link between the use of PFAS firefighting foam on military bases and dangerous levels of PFAS in the drinking water of the surrounding communities.”
Related: Air Force refuses to own PFAS around Oscoda
The legislation would authorize $10 billion starting for PFAS cleanups starting next fiscal year. It would require the military to test all current and former bases and National Guard sites within two years, provide safe drinking water within 60 days to people living around them, and complete construction of all remediation systems within 10 years.
For bases on the “Filthy Fifty” list, the Department of Defense would have five years to complete remedial construction.
It would also require the military to comply with state environmental PFAS laws that, in states like Michigan, are more stringent than existing federal guidelines.
The bills were announced with the support of advocacy groups like the Environmental Working Group, League of Conservation Voters, Earthjustice and others.
“I think this is a critical piece of legislation,” said Tony Spaniola, a Michigan activist and attorney who owns a home on Van Etten Lake in Oscoda, which suffers from toxic surface water foam around its shoreline thanks to PFAS plumes from the former Wurtsmith base.
The Oscoda community has wrestled with PFAS contamination longer than most. The base is the first place in Michigan where PFAS was discovered, in 2010. Community activists and township officials have struggled to get the Air Force to hasten its cleanup efforts over the past decade-plus.
State regulators have also struggled over the years to get the Air Force to comply with state rules limiting PFAS in ground and surface waters. The matter has been through formal disputes and, this spring, prompted Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to invoke special provisions in a defense bill in an effort to bind the Air Force to state laws.
Spaniola said the bills include “the kind of things we’ve been asking for” in Oscoda.
“It marks a watershed change by actually setting deadlines and providing funding to go with the mandate,” Spaniola said. “That is something that’s been missing from this whole discussion over the last 11 years. There’s no deadlines. There’s no accountability, and always the excuse that ‘we don’t have the money to do it.’ This takes away every excuse, puts in a mandate and holds the Department of Defense accountable.”
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Wurtsmith closed in 1993 and its counterpart in the Upper Peninsula, K.I. Sawyer near Gwinn, closed a year later. Both sites were contaminated by use of firefighting foam for training and crashes. The chemicals have polluted residential drinking water wells in both communities and resulted in fish consumption advisories in nearby water bodies.
Other bases on the “Filthy Fifty” list in the Great Lakes basin include Hancock Field Air National Guard Base near Syracuse, N.Y. and Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station.
In Michigan, New York and elsewhere, the military has based its actions on an unenforceable health advisory level of 70 parts-per-trillion (ppt) for two PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA, in drinking water that was set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2016.
The threshold is widely criticized as offering inadequate exposure protection to vulnerable populations, such as children and pregnant women, and states such as Michigan, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire and others have developed more stringent standards. Those rules are under attack from PFAS manufacturers like 3M, which is seeking to invalidate them in court.
The large class of fluorinated chemicals have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems, immune system suppression and other chronic health problems.
In Michigan, seven different PFAS compounds are regulated in groundwater and drinking water and binding the Department of Defense to those standards, some of which are much lower than 70-ppt, would likely expand the number of residences the military would be forced to offer in-home drinking water filtration or connect to a safe municipal supply.
The new legislation would bind the military to the most stringent applicable standards, whether set by the state or, eventually, by the federal government. Existing bills in Congress would require the EPA to develop a national PFAS drinking water standard within two years and designate the chemicals as “hazardous substance,” a classification that would enable the EPA to order the Department of Defense to perform certain cleanup actions.
Spaniola credited activism with helping move the needle with lawmakers in recent years. He said conversation around the Department of Defense as an impediment to regulatory progress on PFAS is becoming more prevalent.
On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hear testimony from communities affected by PFAS. State regulators will speak from New Mexico, which is fighting the Air Force in court over contamination around Cannon and Holloman bases.
“It’s beginning to sink in,” Spaniola said.
Bases on the Filthy Fifty list include:
England Air Force Base, Louisiana.
Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California.
Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.
Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, South Carolina.
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.
Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida.
Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, New York.
Grand Prairie Armed Forces Reserve Complex, Texas.
Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina.
Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.
Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York.
Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.
Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.
Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi.
Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois.
Marine Corps Air Station Tustin, California.
Travis Air Force Base, California.
Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota.
Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.
Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts.
Eaker Air Force Base, Arkansas.
Naval Air Station Alameda, California.
Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.
Horsham Air Guard Station, Pennsylvania.
Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.
Edwards Air Force Base, California.
Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Galena Air Force Base, Alaska.
Naval Research Lab Chesapeake Bay Detachment, Maryland.
Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado.
Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee.
Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington.
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, New York.
F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming.
Nevada Air National Guard Base - Reno, Nevada.
K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, Michigan.
Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire.
Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri.
Wurtsmith Air Force Base, Michigan.
Shepherd Field Air National Guard Base, West Virginia.
Naval Air Station Whidbey Island - Ault Field, Washington.
Rosecrans Air National Guard Base, Missouri.
Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
Iowa Air National Guard Base - Des Moines, Iowa.
Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York.
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