[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "Community demands solutions as Fairchild [AFB, WA] reckons with new PFAS contamination rule"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Community demands solutions as Fairchild reckons with new PFAS contamination rule
For years, the air force base relied on a now-outdated standard for ‘forever chemicals’ to assure West Plains well owners they were out of harm’s way. The EPA has established a much lower, legally-binding drinking water limit for PFAS, and Fairchild’s water provision program will likely expand.

BY AARON HEDGE 
Range Media (Inland Northwest)
JUNE 15, 2024 

Not long after they moved into a trailer home on a secluded property in the ponderosas between Spokane and Airway Heights in the early 2000s, Stephanie and Michael Mertell stopped drinking their well water. 

Michael was having stomach pains he couldn’t fully explain, though he had an idea of the cause.

…

In December 2021, the Mertells received the first of what turned out to be quarterly letters from Fairchild Air Force Base. Fairchild lay upstream on Deep Creek, several miles southwest of their home.

The letters informed the Mertells that several forms of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, had contaminated their well — the result of firefighting drills at Fairchild. Similar operations occurred at bases across the United States from the 1970s until 2022, when firefighters, unaware of the toxicity, drenched soils with PFAS-containing foam designed to extinguish jet-fuel blazes. The chemicals then sank into the groundwater. 

…

For the entire article, see
https://rangemedia.co/west-plains-pfas-fairchild-epa-water-filter/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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