Editor, It’s been over a year since Perfluoroalkyl substances from Navy’s Outlying Field and Ault Field were found in public and private water supplies.
Families who abandoned contaminated private wells a year ago are still drinking, cooking and brushing their teeth with water from plastic bottles delivered by the Navy.
After finding PFASs in its own water in 2016, the Navy began testing public and private wells for only three PFASs.
It did not test for PFHpA and PFHxS, two chemicals it found in its own water.
It takes 8.5 years for the body to rid itself of half the PFHxS it accumulated.
In October of 2017, the Navy retested drinking water wells, this time with more sensitive detection limits and for 14 PFASs.
However, this testing was only available to owners of wells where a PFAS was previously detected.
Wells adjacent to a property where a PFAS was detected above EPA’s advisory limit were eligible for retesting, but not those with lower detection.
The Navy’s flawed investigation ignores the realty of migrating contamination that can impact wells not previously contaminated.
Solutions to our PFAS problem are being discussed behind closed doors and without the participation of all “stakeholders.” This can lead to the polluter-friendly “solutions” that allow for contaminants to remain at “acceptable” levels and remediation costs being shifted to taxpayers.