PORTSMOUTH — Two former Air Force officials believe contaminated water at the former Pease Air Force Base — and even deteriorating nuclear missiles — could have caused what they believe are an unusually high number of birth defects or still-born babies here in the early 1980s.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Perry Forgione said he served at the former Pease Air Force Base from 1980 to 1983.
“I lived in base housing with my family and I can tell you on a monthly basis someone from the hospital came and tested the water in base housing,” Forgione, who served with the 509th Bombardment Wing, said during the recent 157th Air Refueling Wing’s listening session at the Pease Air National Guard base.
Forgione started conducting research and determined that one “out of 500 children here at the time in 1980 were born with birth defects and we couldn’t figure it out.” Forgione believes contaminated water caused the defects.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Bob Egan also spoke and said in 1979 when he began serving at the Air Force base, “we all knew about this stuff.” He served at Pease Air Force Base from 1979 to 1983 as a shift commander.
Egan also served as a senior nuclear weapons convoy commander at Pease, and told the crowd they were “around the nukes all the time.” Nuclear weapons were stored in the base’s 62-acre Weapons Storage Area, which is located at the end of Arboretum Drive in the wildlife refuge.
Shortly before Egan was transferred off base he heard “that the SRAMs (short-range attack missiles) were having problems,” he said.
Egan later learned “it was probably radiation that caused the problem.” He also added that when he served at Pease “we all knew about the water” problems.
“I get it that was the middle of the Cold War (and) you didn’t want a lot of problems,” Egan said.
But he urged Air National Guard and Air Force staff to address the problem.