Water on, off N.J. military base contaminated with chemicals, base says.
Tests on several water sources on and off Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst show contamination from two chemicals contained in firefighting foam used on the base for decades, the base said.
The testing is ongoing and being completed as part of a comprehensive environmental effort by the U.S. Air Force to ferret out contamination after prior tests in ground and surface waters on base found elevated levels of PFOS and PFOA, the base said.
Dustin Roberts said.
Of 131 off-base private drinking water wells tested, three were contaminated, and one had combined PFOS/PFOA levels of 1,392 parts per trillion, Roberts said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisory level – or HAL – for PFOS and PFOA is 70 parts per trillion.
On base, the program has tested approximately 165 groundwater monitoring wells and 28 drinking water sources – 27 of them wells and one surface intake that is off- base.
Of those, 124 of the monitoring wells were contaminated and two base drinking water sources, two shallow wells on the Lakehurst part of the base, were contaminated, Roberts said.
Such systems were commonly installed in aircraft hangars, he said.
Roberts said the Air Force at the base is concerned with the contamination overall, but is focusing on impacts off base.