Dangerous PFAS foam found on the beach at St. Mary’s College of Maryland
By Pat Elder, Class of ‘77
January 15, 2024
Carcinogenic foam at St. Mary’s College of Maryland -December 18, 2023
Highly toxic fluorinated chemicals have been identified on the waterfront at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The foam shown above contained 18 different PFAS compounds totaling 1,680.4 parts per trillion, (ppt.). PFAS stands for per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances.
PFOS, (Perfluo octanesulfonic acid), was found at 1,301.5 ppt, which is 77.4% of the total.
The contamination likely originated from the nearby Webster Field Annex of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in St. Inigoes, Maryland. There are no other known industrial or military sites on the St. Mary’s River and it is unlikely that the contamination came from the college.
In April 2021 the Navy reported that groundwater at Webster Field contained a total of 92,378 parts per trillion of total PFAS:
PFOS 84,757 ppt
PFOA 2,816
PFBS 4,805
TOTAL 92,378 ppt
Groundwater may seep into surface water. The Navy released data on the three PFAS compounds shown above. The actual totals on the base are likely to be much higher if all of the compounds found in the foams are tested and reported.
The toxins were detected at Building 8076, also known as Fire Station 3. The Navy held routine fire-training training exercises with aqueous film-forming foam, known as AFFF. The toxins contaminate the groundwater on the sandy spit and seep into the St. Mary’s River where they are carried by the prevailing winds from the south southwest to the college.
The Navy claims there is “no current complete exposure pathways to people from releases of PFAS to on or off base receptors.” This is the Navy’s way of saying they accept no responsibility for their criminal actions.
Although we don’t drink from the waters in the St. Mary’s River, we are poisoned by the presence of PFOS in the oysters, crabs, and fish. It is a chronic, accumulative poisoning.
At least 18 different PFAS chemicals are present in the river
at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
The propensity of PFOS and other PFAS compounds to bioaccumulate in seafood has been firmly established. PFOS may gather in fish tissue up to 2,000 times the ambient water levels. The state of Maryland is aware of Largemouth Bass in the Potomac River watershed that contains 94,200 parts per trillion of PFOS and they’re OK to eat.
The Maryland Department of the Environments has repeatedly argued that it is not fair to compare the consumption of PFOS in drinking water to the levels found in seafood, while many of the nation’s top scientists say otherwise.
PFOS is recognized as a carcinogen by the state of California, but not by the state of Maryland. It’s devastating impact on human health at miniscule levels of consumption has been well documented.
PFDA, PFNA, and PFUnA were also found at dangerous levels at St. Mary’s. These compounds also bioaccumulate in fish.
PFDA (148.6ppt) - linked to liver, immune, developmental, and male and female reproductive effects in humans.
PFNA (98.3 ppt) - associated with liver disease, asthma, breast neoplasms, and prenatal exposure, delayed puberty.
PFUnA (60.7 ppt) – linked to diabetes mellitus type 2, eczema, and testicular diseases.
Eurofins PFAS Test for Oyster, Crab, and Rockfish
The chart shown here is taken from a report furnished by Eurofins Laboratory dated October 29, 2020, on an oyster and a crab caught at the mouth of St Inigoes Creek where it empties into the St. Mary’s River about 3 miles south of the college. The Rockfish was caught at Cornfield Harbor on the Potomac, about 6 miles south of the college. The toxins are found in firefighting foams and used in industrial applications on base. The Rockfish had 15,000 parts per trillion of PFOS alone!
The U.S. EPA has established an interim health advisory for PFOS in drinking water at .02 part per trillion, meaning the levels in the Rockfish are 750,000 times above the threshold.
The report on the foam was done by Cyclopure, Inc. Both Cyclopure and Eurofins are used by the DOD for environmental testing.
I published the results of the poisoned seafood in November of 2020 and sent them to 50 regional press outlets. Only the Bay Journal reported the results.
Earlier in the year, when I first reported high levels of PFAS in the water at our beach on the north side of St. Inigoes Creek, a spokesperson from the Maryland Department of the Environment questioned the legitimacy of the results, suggesting that if PFAS did exist, it likely originated at the landfill or a municipal firehouse. The St. Andrews Landfill is 11 miles away while the Valley Lee Fire Department is 5 miles away. Neither facility is near the water. The fire station on base where the chemicals are recklessly used and discarded is 2,000 feet across the creek from our property. Why, I wondered, was the state covering for the Navy?
In March of 2020 almost 300 people crammed into the Lexington Park Library for a public meeting hosted by the navy to address the contamination. Many expressed their concerns. The college responded to public concerns by testing the river for PFAS.
From north to south: St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the site of seafood testing, and the Naval Electronic Systems Engineering Activity, Webster Field Annex of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
On July 8, 2020, St. Mary’s College of Maryland published a PFAS Final Report that contained several misleading statements. St. Mary’s is a state-supported, 4-year liberal arts college.
The press release says that PFAS may have been released at Webster Field when the fact had been established by the Navy. The press release focuses on the drinking water. The college stated, “College drinking water is provided through three wells located on campus. The College has consulted with Maryland Environmental Services (MES), and requested MES specifically test our campus drinking water for PFAS. The final report confirms that the College’s drinking water is free of PFAS.”
Drinking water was never the issue. I tested my well which draws water from 300 feet below the ground in St. Mary’s City and found no PFAS. Most of the PFAS in our bodies is from the food we eat, especially the seafood.
The air is also likely to be contaminated at the college. The sediment and beach areas at the college are caked with PFAS. When the tide goes out the winds dry the carcinogens and lift them into the air. PFAS settles in our lungs and in our homes as dust. I tested the dust in my home in December 2023 and found 958.2 ppt of total PFAS, including 692 ppt of PFHxS and 132.7 ppt of PFOS. Dust is regarded as the most prevalent pathway of ingestion for small children.
The college called on Maryland Environmental Services (MES) to test water from the St. Mary’s River which showed total PFAS at 1.7 parts per trillion. The college stated in its release, “PFAS chemicals are not readily absorbed through the skin so the risk of swimming in the river is negligible, however drinking the water from St. Mary’s River is not advised for reasons separate from PFAS chemicals.”
We may gain a perspective of the mentality of Maryland Environmental Services in this ridiculous and dismissive statement above. Ask hundreds of firefighters across the country who are involved in class action suits because of the contamination they’ve suffered through dermal contact with their PFAS-laden turnout gear.
Michigan has issued warnings about eating the fish and coming into contact with the foam.
Michigan has taken steps to warn the public
about PFAS and the foam in surface waters.
Although we don’t know the identity of the compounds with the concentration of 1.7 ppt of PFAS in the St. Mary’s River, the state of Minnesota has set limits for PFOS at .05 ppt in some lakes due to concerns about the bioaccumulation of the carcinogen in fish. This is no laughing matter. This is about warning women who are pregnant or may become pregnant to be careful about consuming these poisons.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources warns residents that levels of PFOS in rivers and lakes above 2 parts per trillion are a danger to public health. (WQC is water quality criteria)
More on MES
MES is an independent state agency that provides environmental services to public and private entities, but mostly to state and local governments. It has no regulatory authority and functions as a non-profit business arm of the state.
The agency has been dogged by concerns about its quasi-governmental nature and the lack of accountability demanded of the agency. MES can circumvent procurement standards without the oversight that normal state agencies encounter. MES runs privately owned facilities. The organization does not file a Federal Form 990. Alarm bells ought to go off.
MES operates 89 wastewater treatment plants across the state, as well as multiple landfills and incinerators. These facilities are likely to be releasing high levels of PFAS into the environment while Maryland lags behind many states in regulating the carcinogens. The state has resisted attempts to regulate the toxins being released from these sources, although MDE says it has begun testing wastewater treatment plants across the state to gather data on the presence of PFAS in the influent, effluent, and sludge that result from the wastewater treatment processes.
We still haven’t seen any of these results.
The Maryland Environmental Service has had a controversial history. Its former CEO Roy McGrath embezzled several hundred thousand dollars from the agency. McGrath served as director of MES for 3½ years and left the MES to become Governor Larry Hogan’s chief of staff in May 2020. After McGrath accepted an unusually generous severance payment, he was awarded the job as Governor Hogan’s Chief of Staff. McGrath resigned after less than 3 months on the job, after the payments became public. McGrath had worked on campaigns with Hogan since 1992.
McGrath was declared a wanted fugitive when he failed to show up in a federal court for a trial on corruption charges in Baltimore in early 2023. He was killed during an FBI “agent-involved shooting” on April 3, 2023.
Independent analysis of water and seafood concentrations ought to be conducted in the St. Mary’s River. We learned that we cannot trust the state from the bogus report the Maryland Department of the Environment produced on PFAS in oysters.
MDE falsified oyster data. The MDE looked at PFAS in oysters and used an analytical level of parts per billion, meaning for any one compound, if levels were under 1,000 parts per trillion, they said there was no detection. The state says the oysters are OK to eat and they never tested the crabs, while we found 2,050 ppt of total PFAS in one oyster and 6,650 ppt of total PFAS in a crab.
In April of 2021 I sent a letter to the St. Mary’s County Health Department asking if it was OK for my daughter, with plans to have children, to eat the crabs, oysters, and rock fish caught from the river. I sent them my test results and I asked for a simple yes or no answer.
I received the following response from the Manager of the Environmental Program Manager, State of Maryland:
“Currently there are no known thresholds for natural waters or oyster tissue for PFAS. Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) does not currently have any advisories for contaminants in oysters. The only known PFAS thresholds are associated with drinking water, where the risk of exposure is greatest. The Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is currently researching the issue and MDE looks for their guidance related to sampling (surface waters and fish or shellfish tissue) and standard/approved methods, as well as considering a threshold for advising the public. MDE does not have any additional information regarding PFAS levels in surface waters or oysters at this time.”
So much for the yes or no answer. The state prefers to sit on the sidelines. They don’t say the fish are OK and they don’t say they are dangerous. MDE’s new fish advisory allows consumption of tens of thousands of parts per trillion of these chemicals. Smallmouth Bass in the Potomac north of Washington containing blood plasma with 574,000 ppt remains OK to eat.
PFAS-laden foam travels with the tide from the Naval Electronic Systems Engineering Activity, Webster Field Annex of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station on St. Inigoes Creek. This photo is from Rosecroft Point, just below St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
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