[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS, PFAS: "PFAS at the Pōhakuloa Training Area and the Kilauea Military Reservation, Hawaii"

[Lenny Siegel <Lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

PFAS at the Pōhakuloa Training Area and the Kilauea Military Reservation, Hawaii
A summary of an analysis of the Final Preliminary Assessment and Site Inspection (PA/SI) of Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, Pōhakuloa Training Area and Kilauea Military Reservation, Hawaii, July 2023

This is Part 2 of a 4-part series. 



By Pat Elder
Military Poisons
January 19, 2026

The Pōhakuloa Training Area (PTA) is profoundly impacted by PFAS contamination. This shouldn’t be surprising, although Army press releases and news coverage have been lacking.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) establishes the Preliminary Assessment/Site Inspection process. (PA/SI). This process minimizes the extent of contamination across military installations. Rather than evaluating the full range of documented PFAS uses—including fire-resistant materials, hydraulic and lubricating fluids, munitions components, coatings, textiles, wiring insulation, degreasers, and waste streams, the Army largely confines its investigations to aqueous film-forming foam, (AFFF).

Even within this constrained focus, many AFFF-associated locations are downplayed or eliminated through sketchy interviews with installation subordinates and paper-based screening. This allows stormwater runoff, cesspool and leach-well reliance, and multiple secondary transport mechanisms to be overlooked. The resulting portrayal of PFAS risk conflicts with the intent of the PA/SI process, which is to identify all potential sources of release and exposure pathways.

While AFFF is an important contributor to PFAS contamination, elevating it as the only source constitutes a regulatory failure that obscures the Army’s multiple uses of PFAS across PTA and undermines the intent of environmental oversight laws.


…

For the entire article, see
https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/pfas-at-the-phakuloa-training-area-and-the-kilauea-military-reservation-hawaii-1

—

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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