NATO military bases in Germany poison rivers and fish with PFAS
Results from six bases show dangerous contamination.
By Pat Elder
October 8, 2024
We figured it wasn’t worth risking our lives to take environmental
samples on the Spangdahlem Airbase, so we got as close as the law allowed.
We took water samples from streams flowing from six active and former NATO military installations from July 26 – July 30, 2024. The results show that the streams and all aquatic life are poisoned with PFAS, likely forever. Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant should not eat fish from these regions and neither should anyone else. All wildlife is likely contaminated.
Per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS) have been used in routine firefighting exercises at these six German bases since the 1970s: Büchel Airbase, Ramstein Airbase, former Bitburg Airbase, Spangdahlem Airbase, former Rhein-Main Air Base, now Frankfurt Airport, and Weisbaden Army Airfield. The U.S. military allowed the toxins to seep and drain into groundwater and surface water. People are slowly coming to realize the gravity and scale of this environmental crime. The U.S. government is less than forthcoming.
February 23, 2009 - Firefighters train to battle aircraft fires at Ramstein Air Base. – U.S. Air Force photo
Air Force bases in the U.S. are known to have held fire training activities on a weekly basis. At Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, just 8 miles from Washington, the former fire training area, just a few hundred meters from Piscataway Creek, was used for fire training exercises from 1973 to 1990. Records show that approximately 300 gallons of a mix of JP-4, motor oil, and solvents were released to the burn area during weekly exercises. See PFAS Site Inspection, 2018.
Less transparency in Germany
PFAS report by the Air Force in Ansbach, Germany, withheld important information.
The Air Force has provided detailed documentation of its use of these carcinogens in the continental U.S. but not in Germany, where freedom of information act requests may be ignored or returned in a heavily redacted fashion. This report on U.S. Army Garrison Ansbach is heavily redacted.
Poisoned surface water and fish often impact human health more than drinking water.
We documented 93.9 parts per trillion of PFOS at the mouth of Piscataway Creek as it flows into the Potomac River, just 8 miles south of Washington. This location is 8 miles downstream from the burn pit at Joint Base Andrews. We found 93.7 parts per trillion of PFOS flowing from Büchel Airbase in Germany, so these stories are closely related.
PFOS, (Perfluoro octane sulfonate), is one variety of more than 16,000 types of PFAS. It was used in routine fire training practice on the base for more than 40 years. The state of Maryland, at our urging, tested largemouth bass where we tested the water. The state reported the popular sportfish contained 94,200 ppt of PFOS in its fillet.
Joint Base Andrews is the home of Air Force One.
We tested tap water from an apartment building a mile from the poisoned river and the water contained a total PFAS concentration of 1.2 parts per trillion. The water is regulated for PFAS. The fish are not.
This same scenario is being played out around the world.
Although the Pentagon knew these chemicals were a danger to health, they used them in case one of their $100 million airplanes caught fire. The PFAS-laced fire extinguishing foams can put out a fire a few seconds quicker than the environmentally safe foams.
A 2021 study from the University of Maryland surveyed the release of aqueous film-forming foam, (AFFF) in civilian and military hangars. 242 of 245 incidents of foam discharges that occurred over a 17-year period occurred despite no fire being present. Environmentally safe fluorine-free foams have been available for ten years and the European civilian airports have largely switched to them.
This chart shows the results we found during our testing of streams flowing from U.S./NATO bases in Germany during the summer of 2024.
The EU Water Framework Directive (EU, 2013) lists PFOS as a priority hazardous substance that poses a “significant risk to the aquatic environment.” It has established an annual average environmental quality standard of 0.65 ppt in inland surface waters. Look at the numbers here. Are the regulations intended to be enforced?
We found 20 different kinds of PFAS in Germany’s streams while the German media typically reports on just a few of these. They are all believed to endanger human health.
Once people understand a little bit about the science behind these “forever chemicals” they’ll understand the horror. It cannot be overstated.
“A well-established body of scientific research indicates that endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are part of our daily lives are making us more susceptible to reproductive disorders, cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and other serious health conditions.”
A report from the Endocrine Society, co-produced with the International Pollutants Elimination Network, concentrates on exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, (EDC’s). They document dangerous levels of EDCs from four sources: PFAS, plastics, pesticides, and consumer products.
The International Pollutants Elimination Network, (IPEN) has been way ahead of the learning curve on the PFAS in fire- fighting foam, warning of the dangers and encouraging airports and militaries to switch to fluorine-free foams in this 2018 publication.
People involved in BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany) are a trustworthy source of information.
Even in Frankfurt, the site with the lowest levels of contamination in our survey, all aquatic life is likely to be poisoned. Concentrations of these chemicals in the single digits per trillion begin the process of bioaccumulation which may result in human ingestion.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) estimates that “fish and other seafood” account for up to 86% of dietary PFAS exposure in adults.
In Germany U.S. soldiers dug craters and regularly filled them with hundreds of gallons of jet fuel and other hazardous substances. They ignited the fuel, creating a massive fireball that soldiers would extinguish using the cancer-causing foams. The consequences are apocalyptic.
The U.S. military also uses these chemicals in a wide range of products and applications on bases in Germany. Congress directed the DOD to prepare a report outlining the uses of PFAS that they say are critical to the national security of the United States. In response, the DOD published a farcical report on Critical Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl substance uses in August, 2023. It’s worth a look because it identifies specific name brands of commercially available deadly human carcinogenic materials.
The waste from these materials is sent down the drain and routed to wastewater treatment plants which typically send them, untreated, to streams and rivers. PFAS-laden materials are buried in landfills or incinerated. All three practices carry severe risks to human health.
The EPA is on the sidelines while the DOD dictates environmental policy in these matters. The EPA is great on the science, but lousy on the enforcement end of things. They say PFOS can bio accumulate in fish up to 4,000 times the levels in the water.
Overseas, the American military hides behind Status of Forces Agreements (SOFA’s) that codify an unjust system of polluter and polluted.
The dangerous concentrations of PFOS means we may expect fish with hundreds of thousands of parts per trillion of PFOS in their filet near these bases, and this has been shown to be true.
The state of Minnesota understands this and that’s because it is home to the 3M corporation, a ruthless killer. Minnesota tries to keep some of its lakes under .05 ppt for PFOS.
For a deeper dive into PFAS contamination in Europe, see Le Monde’s amazing report on PFAS in the European environment. Click on the map to find a dot near you. Generally, LeMonde underreported the military sites.
9 sets of PFAS results from Germany
Following are the reports on each of the nine locations we sampled in Germany. A brief summary of each location is followed by a map that identifies where the sample was taken. A link is provided that shows the exact location of each sample. The maps are followed by the results in parts per trillion.
Büchel Airbase
Ellerbach Stream
– PFOS – 93.7; Total PFAS - 213.6 ppt
The red marker shows the location of the stream where we collected a sample near Büchel Air Base.
Der Fliegerhorst Büchel, is the home of approximately 20 US thermonuclear weapons, carried by the German Luftwaffe’s Panavia Tornado fighter jets. F-35’s are scheduled to replace the Tornadoes.
The base is located in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of western Germany, about 60 km from the border with Belgium and Luxembourg. A German Brown Trout caught in the Pahlbach, downstream from Büchel Air Base, contained 769 μg/kg of PFOS.
· 769 ug/kg = 769 micrograms per kilogram.
· 769 micrograms per kilogram = 769 parts per billion.
· 769 parts per billion = 769,000 parts per trillion (ppt).
The European Environment Agency’s Drinking Water Directive limits total PFAS in drinking water to 500 ppt and levels for 20 individual PFAS (including PFOS) to 100 ppt. Meanwhile Germans are mostly free to eat fish containing PFOS at thousands of times more than the standard for drinking water.
The German Tornadoes are fitted with B61 nuclear bombs. The B61 features a "dial-a-yield" capability with a yield of 0.3 to 340 kilotons. The Hiroshima bomb contained 15 kilotons, the same as 15,000 tons of TNT.
About 100 B61’s are stored at six bases: Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel Air Base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi Air Base in Italy, Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands and Incirlik in Turkey. These bases are heavily contaminated with PFAS.
PFAS Concentration in the Ellerbach Stream in Büchel
(in ng/L – nanograms per liter, or parts per trillion)
Like the Pahlbach, the Ellerbach drains surface water away from the nuclear base. The Ellerbach was shown to have a dangerous level of 93.7 parts per trillion of PFOS.
If there are remaining doubts about the deadly impact of this carcinogen, see the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Pub Chem site that allows users to search for various PFAS compounds to find their associated diseases and disorders. PFOS, regarded by California to be a deadly human carcinogen, has 69 associated diseases and disorders.
Ramstein Airbase
Mohrbach Stream – PFOS – 148.8; Total PFAS – 414.4 ppt
We took a sample from Mohrbach Stream, flowing to the west of the base.
PFOS concentrations of 148.8 parts per trillion in the water are substantially higher than the results from Büchel. At 103.7 ppt, the level of PFHxS was alarmingly high at Ramstein. This compound is particularly dangerous because it easily becomes airborne and settles in our lungs and in our homes as dust.
Homes in a neighborhood just outside the Shepherd Field Air National Guard base in Martinsburg, West Virginia were found by the Centers for Disease Control to have 16.4 million parts per trillion (ppt) of PFHxS in dust, creating a toxic environment for the smallest children crawling on floors. Germany must awake to this threat! Floors must be wet-mopped and no longer swept with brooms or vacuumed. Air conditioning vents must be changed more frequently.
Entrepreneurial German capitalists in the business of selling home cleaning products could cash in before this truth is popularized.
The 36.8 ppt of PFOA is also a concern because it also bioaccumulates in aquatic organisms, while many consider this compound to be the deadliest of all PFAS varieties.
Just .1 part per trillion of this carcinogen in drinking water is associated with increased rates of pancreatic cancer.
Former Bitburg Airbase, Germany
Stream – PFOS - 185.3; Total PFAS – 406.9 ppt
Retention Pond – PFOS – 46.2; Total PFAS – 105.3 ppt
The stream we sampled flowing from the former Bitburg Airbase showed concentrations of PFAS remarkably similar to those at Ramstein. Bitburg closed 30 years ago, so these alarming concentrations are a testament to the staying power of these chemicals.
The Nims River is west of the runway at the former Bitburg NATO Airbase. The Kyll River to the east. Fish are contaminated with PFOS in both rivers.
From 1952 until 1994, Bitburg Air Base was a front-line NATO air base. The toxic foams were likely used in routine training exercises for 20 years. A trout from the Nims below Wolsfeld, about 8 kilometers away, had 4.500 ppt of PFOS in its filet.
Spangdahlem Airbase, Germany
Auelbach Stream – PFOS – 32.1; Total PFAS – 71.0 ppt
This is the location where we tested from the Auelbach Stream
near the runway at Spangdahlem Airbase.
A German Brown Trout caught in Spanger Bach Creek, near Spangdahlem NATO Airbase was found to contain 82,000 ppt of PFOS in its filet. That news was published in 2015 and it barely attracted attention.
Downstream, the name of Spanger Bach Creek changes to Auelbach. It flows into the Kyll. We took a sample from the Auelbach, and we found 32.1 ppt of PFOS in the water, one of the lowest we found anywhere in Germany.
The Kailbach flows just 500 meters east of the runway at Spangdahlem Airbase. It empties into the Salm River less the 5 kilometers from the NATO base. A brown trout caught there contained 41,000 ppt of PFOS.
It’s important to note that we only know of the totals of PFOS in the fish. We found 20 different varieties of PFAS in German waters. Most of these compounds have been proven to bio accumulate in fish. The amount of these other contaminants will often total more than the PFOS in the fish.
Nearly ten years ago, the Volksfreund news magazine published a prophetic report, Dangerous legacy of the US military: Waters around Rhineland-Palatinate air force bases are contaminated with carcinogenic substances.
At the same time, the residents of Portsmouth, New Hampshire were first realizing the horrors of PFAS contamination at the former Pease Air Force Base. The Pentagon has done a great job keeping this story off of the front pages on all continents.
The Volksfreund article sounded the alarm about streams and fish contaminated with PFAS near U.S. airbases in Trier, Bitburg, Spangdahlem, and Ramstein. It was a wake-up alarm that Germany answered by hitting the snooze button.
A farmer from Binsfeld, the town adjacent to Spangdahlem Airbase, described the foam that flowed through Binsfeld when fire-fighting foam was sprayed at Spangdahlem Air Base. He said it was like a fluffy white ribbon. All around the meadows, shreds of foam remained like giant snowballs. We have all seen images of these carcinogenic foams in rivers from Futenma, Okinawa, to Wurtsmith, Michigan, to Daegu, South Korea, to Brunswick, Maine.
The ten-year-old article in Volksfreund reported that all of the ponds and streams in the vicinity of Spangdahlem airfield showed significant contamination of these chemicals.
We found one stream with total PFAS at 71 parts per trillion and another with 435.8 parts per trillion of total PFAS.
Spangdahlem Airbase, Binsfeld, Germany
Wachenbach Stream – PFOS – 164.8 Total PFAS – 435.8
It’s amazing how close the results are among Ramstein, Bitburg, and Spangdahlem. The concentrations of PFOS ranged from 148 to 185 parts per trillion while levels of total PFAS ranged from 406 parts per trillion to 435.8 parts per trillion. The contamination is a static, permanent part of things.
16 compounds were detected near the Spangdahlem Airbase in this sample near Binsfeld. 164.8 ppt of PFOS came to 37.8% of the 435.8 PFAS detected. PFHxS, at 159.5 ppt made up 36.6%. Keep an eye on this dangerous compound. The remaining 14 compounds came to 115.5 ppt or 25.5% of the total.
We frequently see press reports in Germany addressing “clean up” and “mitigation” of the contamination, but this is state-orchestrated fake news. Germans are like the Japanese. Both have created the world’s foremost modern technical states. Neither seem to comprehend the limits of their scientific capacities to meet the challenge posed by these chemicals. It is the manifestation of the Greek fable of Icarus and Daedalus that taught the lesson of the inability to control certain technologies. Nuclear weaponry is another example of an existential threat to humanity that has escaped our command. Curiously, the genesis of PFAS and nuclear energy are intractably linked. Scientists with the Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb in 1945 nicknamed PFAS “the wildest hellcat” of chemistry.
Pandora couldn’t recapture the troubles she unleashed either.
Relatively low results in Frankfurt..
Former Rhein-Main Air Base
Frankfurt, Germany
Red X - Gundbach Stream - PFOS – 3 ppt; Total PFAS – 23.5 ppt
Yellow X - Hengsbach Stream PFOS 5.3 – Total PFAS 28.7 ppt
The levels of PFOS and PFOA in steams draining from the former Rhein-Main Air Base were comparatively low due to the herculean removal of approximately 500,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil.
A glimpse of other bases where soils have been excavated.
Our results for Frankfurt show that thorough work was done here. It is instructive to examine the excavation of similarly contaminated soils at bases in the U.S.
500,000 cubic meters is equivalent to 653,975 cubic yards.
Following the massive jet fuel and fire-fighting foam release at Red Hill, Hawaii, the Navy boasted it had removed 3,000 cubic feet of soil. That’s 111 cubic yards.
In Frankfurt, we have a cocktail of different PFAS substances like no other location we tested, albeit at a comparatively low level. The former US Air Base is not the complete cause. The Gundbach results also contain compounds from the airport's sewage treatment plant.
The Gundbach had seven compounds totaling 23.5 parts per trillion. The concentrations in the Hengstbach are very similar.
Even these tiny concentrations may bioaccumulate in the smallest fish that swim downstream to be consumed by bigger fish. The banks of the streams are profoundly impacted. The sediment is coated with carcinogens. The air and dust may cause cancer. It’s much worse everywhere else we tested.
The photo here shows the extent
of the excavation at Frankfurt.
Perhaps the sampling points at Frankfurt and other sites had not been optimally selected. It is extraordinarily challenging. There’s a lot to be learned about the fate and transport of PFAS chemicals in surface water and sediment.
All of these things may affect PFAS concentrations in a stream, from one day to the next:
· Wind
· Precipitation
· On-going base activities
· Groundwater migration
· Sorption/leaching
· Velocity of a stream
· Beaver Dams, blockages.
· Currents
Individual PFAS compounds each demonstrate different physical and chemical properties that can affect their behavior in the environment.
Weisbaden had the highest PFAS concentrations we found in Germany.
Weisbaden Army Airfield, Germany
Stream Weisbaden-Erbenheim – PFOS 275.3 ppt. Total PFAS – 1,196.2 ppt
The stream in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim is about 2 km south of the runway.
The former Wiesbaden Air Base is now known as Lucius D. Clay Kaserne, a United States Army installation in Wiesbaden, Germany. - Google Maps
The stream is profoundly contaminated.
The Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, and Mobility announced last year that it sees no need to further restrict or ban fishing in low mountain streams, even in the vicinity of sources of pollution. It’s a shame because the levels of PFAS we detected in the area suggest that the fish are highly contaminated.
According to the Structural and Licensing Directorate North (SGD Nord) the most recent tests found 24,000 ppt of PFAS in a fish near Spangdahlem and government officials seem to be happy about this.
Headlines read: Experts have examined fish from the streams around Spangdahlem airport for pollutants. They are not as contaminated as they used to be - Good news for anglers.
The water bodies now meet the environmental quality standard, as the SGD writes in a recent press release, quoting Munich toxicologist Martin Göttlicher as concluding that the levels now found are within the normal range for samples taken from water bodies that are not visibly polluted. Indeed, the circumstances surrounding the SGD's measurements need to be scrutinized. They likely downplay the actual danger.
Diseases associated with exposure to PFHxS
Notice above, the 564.7 parts per trillion concentration of PFHxS in the stream. It is greater than the total of PFOS and PFOA, the most well-known PFAS compounds. PFHxS is a substitute for PFOS in many industrial applications, including firefighting foams.
See PubChem, a website by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
You can search for these contaminants to find the diseases associated with them.
PFOS is the greatest danger!
The PFOS we detected in streams throughout the region strongly suggest fish are very heavily contaminated, considering the bioaccumulation factors of certain compounds and their corresponding levels in the streams.
How many locations and species of fish were tested by SGD Nord? Where was this one fish with 24,000 ppt of PFOS caught in relation to the known releases of the contaminants, and how many compounds were tested?
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has set a safety threshold for four PFAS compounds: PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, and PFNA that accumulate in the body. The group’s “tolerable weekly intake” is 4.4 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per week.
So, according to this guideline, an expectant mom weighing 50 kilos can safely consume 220 nanograms of the combined total of four PFAS per week. (4.4 ng x 50 kg = 220 nanograms per week)
We’ll say mom consumes an 8-ounce serving or 227 grams of a fish containing 24 nanograms per gram - a concentration recently reported in a fish that German officials say is not a threat to health.
24 ng/g x 227 g = 5,448 ng of PFOS.
We must keep in mind that PFOS accounted for about 31% of the 20 types of PFAS we found in the ten German streams and that most of these dangerous compounds are known to bio accumulate in fish.
The EFSA’s tolerable weekly intake is 220 nanograms of the carcinogens while one meal of the fish containing 24 nanograms per gram (24,000 ppt) packs 5,448 nanograms of PFOS. This amount is 25 times greater than what EFSA says is safe.
Toxicologist Göttlicher says it’s OK to eat 40 grams of fish per week from the region “without having to fear any health damage.” Many scientists would disagree. These chemicals accumulate in our bodies, and we cannot easily excrete them. Depending upon the study, it takes the body from 3.4 to 10 years to eliminate half of the PFAS in blood plasma. The half-life for PFHxS may be up to 35 years.
Toxicologists ought to be warning women who are pregnant or may become pregnant not to eat this fish. They should warn everyone else not to eat it as well.
German scientists like Dr. Agnes Tillmann-Steinbuß are of the opinion that pregnant women should not consume any carcinogenic chemicals, especially not PFAS compounds, which are known to harm the unborn child even in the smallest amounts.
The Downs Law Group helps to make this work possible. Their support allows us to research and write about military contamination around the world. They’ve helped us buy hundreds of PFAS kits and they’ve helped pay for flights and hotels. The firm is working to provide legal representation to individuals in the U.S. and abroad with a high likelihood of exposure to a host of contaminants.
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