The Military Drinking Water Crisis May Be Orders Of Magnitude Greater Than What Is Being Reported

The Department of Defense has failed to inform the public about new water contamination findings by the EPA and Environmental Working Group

Wednesday, January 11, 2023 - According to consumer health advocates at The Environmental Working Group (EWG), the Department of Defense (DOD) may have grossly underestimated and underreported both the extent of the military base drinking water problem and also the number of people whose health may have been damaged. We now know about the drinking water problems at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina that have prompted thousands of Camp Lejeune water lawsuits where volatile organic compounds Trichloroethylene (TCE), Perchloroethylene (PCE), Benzene, Vinyl chloride, and other deadly compounds were found to have contaminated two major water treatment facilities on the base putting over one million people's health at risk. More and more, however, the public is being made aware that PFAS forever chemicals from firefighting foam may have contaminated more than one hundred other military bases to a similar extent. The most recent investigative report by the EWG tells readers that the Department of Defense has been deliberately underestimating the levels of forever chemicals from firefighting foam disposal that have contaminated 116 or more military bases in addition to Camp Lejeune water. EWG alleges "The DOD may be underestimating by hundreds of thousands the number of people at military installations drinking water contaminated with the "forever chemicals" known as PFAS. The DOD's analysis downplays the health hazards of these dangerous chemicals."

One way the Department of Defense is misleading the public about the extent of the military's drinking water contamination problem is by not counting all of the military bases whose drinking water is contaminated. The DOD only counts those bases whose PFOA and PFOS water levels are above 70 parts per trillion (ppt). In July of 2022, the EPA adjusted their guidance on what constitutes forever chemical levels that are unsafe to only 1 ppt, and the DOJ has not updated their reporting. The EWG reports that the DOJ report fails to include at least four military bases with PFOA and PFOS levels above 70 parts per trillion (ppt). They are "Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where in 2016, 649 ppt of PFOA and PFOS was found in drinking water, Arsenal, N.J., where in 2018, 100.3 ppt of PFOA and PFOS was found in drinking water, Yakima Training Center, Wash., where in 2018, 103 ppt of PFOA and PFOS were found in drinking water, and Fort Bragg, N.C., where in 2020, 98 ppt of PFOA and PFOS was found in drinking water," according to EWG. Also, the DOD fails to include soldiers, veterans, civilian employees, and contractors, as well as servicemembers from overseas allies training at bases that came and went in the past in their calculation of the number of people that may have drank contaminated water. This would put the number of people that could have developed cancer and other life-threatening diseases into the millions not only one hundred thousand. The number of people whose health may be at risk is more likely twenty to thirty times greater than DOJ estimates.

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