The goal has been to find clean water, not clean the dirty water.
He said he’s been watching scientific and political discussions around the contaminants, but that they don’t directly affect the water coming out of taps in Airway Heights.
“We like to keep our finger on the pulse of knowing (new federal thresholds for contaminants),” he said, “but our approach to this has always been to eliminate all of the contamination from the water supply.” The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry report says potential health problems associated with the group of chemicals known as perfluoroalkyls, or PFAS, are greater than previously believed, and can have a negative effect at much lower concentrations than current federal thresholds.
It says that exposure to PFAS is associated with cancer, liver damage, reduced fertility, asthma and other problems.
It also describes negative effects at very low doses, and indicates that dangers for pregnant women and children are particularly acute.
For a report with truly enormous financial and health implications it didn’t produce much splash.
We cannot seem to get ATSDR to realize the potential public relations nightmare this is going to be.” Yes, imagine the EPA’s extreme pain.
The Department of Defense says that water supplies around 126 bases have the chemicals above EPA standard, and 36 bases have contamination on-site.
That report shows that testing around Fairchild revealed PFAS and other contaminants in the Airway Heights municipal water system and 43 private wells, some at levels many times higher than the federal threshold.
It does not list Fairchild as a base whose water supply is affected.