CHEMICALS
'Into the unknown': Navy plans PFAS tests
at Md. Base
Bev Banks, E&E News reporter Greenwire:
Monday, March 9, 2020
Janice
Sevre-Duszynska (center), 70, traveled from Baltimore to attend a public
meeting on PFAS around Naval Air Station Patuxent River. She's worried about
the potential for contamination in seafood like oysters. Bev Banks/E&E News
LEXINGTON PARK, Md. — Despite the
Navy's assurances, residents near an air base by the Chesapeake Bay are worried
about whether chemicals are contaminating their water.
The military looms large in St.
Mary's County, where Navy, Marine Corps and Army banners hang in a cafe near
Naval Air Station Patuxent River and residents rely on the base for jobs.
But they are also concerned about chemicals known as
PFAS found in firefighting foam that have caused drinking water contamination
near other military sites across the country (E&E Daily, Mary 4).
NAS Patuxent River, located at the mouth of the
Patuxent River in Lexington Park, is the county's largest employer, providing
about 25,000 jobs, according to Maryland's Department of Commerce.
"What happens at the base
impacts everybody one way or the other," said Bill Hunt, 68, of Leonardtown.
The Navy no longer uses
firefighting foam, which contains per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, during
training, but it is used in the event of an emergency fire.
Traces of cancer-causing pollutants have been found in
Clovis, N.M.'s drinking water, linked to PFAS use at Cannon Air Force Base.
Contamination was also found in Coupeville, Wash., near Naval Air Station
Whidbey Island and Naval Outlying Field Coupeville. Defense Secretary Mark
Esper has said addressing PFAS pollution at these and other military sites is a
priority (E&E News PM, Feb. 27).
A public meeting Tuesday night that
drew over 250 people to Lexington Park Library addressed the Navy's progress in
identifying possible contamination around NAS Patuxent River.
Officials from the Navy, EPA, the
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the St. Mary's County Health
Department, and the Maryland Department of the Environment were there to answer
questions, as community members crowded around poster boards that showed known
and suspected areas on the installation where PFAS-containing foam was used.
"What were they doing to clean
it up? How did they clean it up? Where were they taking it?" asked Geri
Lloyd, 59, of Lusby, Md. She lives in Calvert County, about 15 miles from the
installation. Her husband works on the base, and her sister lives nearby.
David Steckler, the remedial
project manager who runs the environmental restoration program for NAS Patuxent
River, said that the installation sampled its own water and that the local
water supplier for residents outside the base tested its water. Both were found
to be free of PFAS.
"There is no drinking water
exposure in the area, surrounding the base or at the base itself," he said.
Patrick Gordon, public affairs
officer at NAS Patuxent River, said the Navy does plan to conduct PFAS sampling
at 18 sites at the installation.
Steckler said the Navy is
"extremely early in the process" of testing the sites for potential
contamination. It's a lengthy process, he said.
"If we come to the end, and we
find a site that needs to be cleaned up to protect human health and the
environment, we will do so," Steckler said.
PFAS awareness
Geri Lloyd, 59, lives about 15 miles from
the installation, and her husband works on base. "What were they doing to
clean it up?" she asked Tuesday about PFAS. Bev Banks/E&E News
Lloyd said she first learned about
PFAS when her sister "read an article in the paper and told me about
it." Before then, Lloyd said, she "didn't have a clue."
Hunt said he didn't know until the
Navy's meeting that PFAS were "used so widely on the base" to put out
fires in the airplane hangars.
One St. Mary's City resident has
been especially outspoken about potential contamination, conducting his own
sampling that residents brought up at the meeting.
Pat Elder, 64, collected water
samples from St. Inigoes Creek near his home and sent it to the nonprofit
Freshwater Future, which issued a report that showed the presence of PFAS above
EPA advisory levels. Elder published the results online.
He argued that the creek is
contaminated due to its proximity to the Naval Outlying Field Webster, an
extension of NAS Patuxent River about 12 miles from the base.
"It's not good enough to say,
'Well, we trust the Navy to do the job, we trust the Navy to protect the health
of people in Maryland.' No, that's what I'm about right now," Elder said.
Julianna Parreco, a 22-year-old
student at St. Mary's College, read online about the St. Inigoes Creek testing.
She was worried about PFAS levels because "Inigoes Creek is like five
minutes away from my house."
Gordon, the NAS Patuxent River
public affairs officer, cast doubt on the test results and said the Navy has
cautioned against misinformation.
"While they can do testing at
home, it's important to understand that there are very few labs in the United
States that are actually certified to test for PFAS," Gordon said.
Janice Sevre-Duszynska, 70 years
old and friends with Elder, traveled from Baltimore to protest outside the
Navy's forum. She held a cutout of an oyster in front of her face to show her
distress over possible PFAS contamination in seafood.
"I am concerned for pregnant
women, for children, for all of us, because the, you know, the oysters, the
fish, the water, all of that needs to be pure and clear," Sevre-Duszynska
said.
'More questions than answers'
More than 250 southern Maryland residents
attended the Navy's forum on PFAS on Tuesday night in Lexington Park, Md. Bev Banks/E&E News
Some people still had questions after
attending the Navy's meeting.
"I definitely walked away with a
lot more questions than answers," said Rosa Hance, 31, of Great Mills,
Md., who asked about how frequently the Navy tests for water contamination.
As the chairwoman of the Sierra Club's
Maryland chapter executive committee, Hance has received questions from the
community about PFAS. She said the Navy's answers made it difficult for her to
understand the path forward.
"I'm walking into the unknown
here," Hance said. "I don't, I'm not sure what the plan is and what
citizens should be expected to know or what we should do."
St. Mary's County resident Bob Lewis,
64, executive director of the St. Mary's River Watershed Association, said the
Navy "did a fairly good job" assuring people there was not a threat
to their drinking water, but he also left the meeting without a sense of
clarity.
"It seemed like the questions
that I want answered, that my organization needs answered, didn't get answered
and are not going to be answered anytime in the near future," Lewis said.
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