PFAS in Foam, Fish, Oysters, Crabs, and my Blood
I believe the Navy has poisoned my blood.
By Pat Elder
November 17, 2024
Oyster, Rockfish, and crabs from St. Inigoes Creek, Maryland
I recently received PFAS blood serum results from Eurofins Environmental Testing. My blood plasma had a total of 42.2 ng/ml (nanograms per liter, or parts per billion) of the seven PFAS compounds identified by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Per fluoro octane sulfonate (PFOS) in my blood totaled 32.3 ng/ml.
I have eaten lot of contaminated seafood.
The US average level of PFOS in the blood is 4.25 ng/mL, with 95% of the population having a level of 14.6 ng/mL or less, according to the ATSDR’s PFAS information for Clinicians, 2024.
Generally, PFAS blood serum levels in Asians dwarfs that of Hispanics.
41.2% of Asian adults consume seafood at least twice per week. 14.5% of Hispanic adults consume seafood at least twice per week. PFAS in the blood is a cultural thing.
A report by the National Academies of Science, Education and Medicine (National Academies), Guidance on PFAS Exposure, Testing, and Clinical Follow-Up, 2022, advises clinicians to use serum concentrations of the sum of seven PFAS compounds to inform clinical care of exposed patients. Those compounds are: PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA, MeFOSAA, PFDA, and PFUnDA.
They say health effects related to PFAS exposure may be expected at 2 ng/ml for the total of the seven compounds and there is an increased risk of adverse effects above 20 ng/ml.
The committee estimates that 2 ng/ml corresponds to the 2nd percentile, and 20 ng/ml corresponds to the 91st percentile. In common language, 2% of the population has PFAS below 2 ng/ml and 91% have levels below 20 ng/ml.
My blood contains 42.16 ng/ml of total PFAS and 32.3 ng/ml of PFOS, both representing the 99th percentile.
History of PFAS blood testing
In 2015, blood serum results of people at the former Pease Air Force base, New Hampshire had an average of 8.59 ng/ml of PFOS. (N = 1,578). My levels are nearly four times higher.
The former Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster, Pennsylvania, and the Willow Grove Naval Air Base in Horsham, Pennsylvania are both sources of PFAS contamination that poisoned drinking water. In 2018 residents of nearby Bucks and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania were found to have an average of 10.2 ng/ml of PFOS in their blood. (N=235) In 2014 the Stewart Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York contaminated drinking water in that community, contributing to a median PFOS serum level of 16.3 ng/ml. (N = 1,917).
With such high concentrations of the chemicals in the environment in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New York, the fish, turkeys, deer, and other wildlife are also impacted, adding to the number of pathways to human ingestion.
The National Academies of Sciences advises physicians, “For patients with serum PFAS concentrations between 2 ng/ml and 20 ng/mL, clinicians should prioritize screening for dyslipidemia, screen for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, and screen for breast cancer. For patients with serum PFAS concentration of 20 ng/mL or higher, clinicians should also conduct thyroid function testing, assess for symptoms of kidney cancer, testicular cancer, and ulcerative colitis.
I ate a lot of contaminated seafood until 2021.
For twelve years prior to 2021, I ate great quantities of oysters, crabs, and rockfish caught from the deep tidal, saltwater creek behind my house. I had a quarter acre oyster bed, and I fed off of it. I regularly baited crab pots off of my dock and I consumed those crabs, usually with butter, Old Bay, and cold beer. I fished and consumed a wide variety of species. Who wouldn’t? This is a wonderful place to live, aside from the Navy’s contamination and the noise they make.
Fire Station 3 and the Aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) maintenance check area are shown here on the Navy’s Webster Field Annex.
There’s a firehouse at the Webster Filed Annex of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station 1,800 feet across the creek from my beach. They used PFAS in firefighting foams during regular training exercises for many years, perhaps as far back as the 1970’s, although the Navy won’t say how long. The base is built on a thin sandy spit of land, so the carcinogenic foam perpetually drains into the creek. The chemicals travel with the tides, the currents, and the wind for many miles.
I took this photo three years ago showing a line of the foam heading toward my beach from the Navy base. Sometimes the foam gets more than a foot high and becomes airborne.
The foam at my beach contained 6,449 parts per trillion (ppt) of total PFAS, with 3,361 ppt of PFOS. The foam at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, 2.5 miles up the St. Mary’s River, contained 1,680 ppt of total PFAS with 1,310 ppt of PFOS.
The entire St. Mary’s River watershed is likely contaminated with these chemicals and the Navy is the only known source of the contamination.
Blue X – St. Mary’s College of Maryland Waterfront.
Green X - Rosecroft Point.
Red X - Firehouse at Webster Field
The carcinogens on the riverbank dry at low tide and become airborne, contaminating everyone. The National Academies report details PFAS contamination of the air and the dust in our homes.
It is a great irony that most of the press coverage on PFAS is about contaminated drinking water, although my well water does not contain PFAS. My well goes down 300 feet. The municipal water in nearby Lexington Park contains tiny traces of the chemicals that adhere to the EPA’s limits.
Meanwhile, the shallow groundwater at Webster Field and at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Lexington Park is heavily contaminated with PFAS. This is a terrible problem because this shallow water may be used for agriculture. The produce grown with contaminated water will poison fruits, vegetables, grains, and farm animals. The green, leafy vegetables are most impacted. Maryland also spreads PFAS-contaminated sewer sludge on farms, compounding the problem.
Grains are the least impacted while lettuce is the most impacted by PFAS.
The Navy has not admitted it has poisoned our seafood. They claim that the dangerously contaminated water on the Patuxent River Naval Air Station does not reach land outside the base. Here’s how they put it:
“The migration pathway to receptors found adjacent to and off the base boundary through private water supply wells does not appear to be complete based on surface water and groundwater flow. Flow direction for these two media are away from the private communities located on the west and south sides of the Station and flow direction is towards the Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay to the north and east.”
The Navy is implying there is no cause for alarm because the toxins drain into the river and the bay.
In 2001, the Patuxent River NAS dumped 2,500 gallons of super-concentrated foam from a hangar at the Patuxent River NAS into the St. Mary’s County Metropolitan Commission’s Marlay Taylor Water Reclamation Facility. The facility pumped the carcinogens two miles into the center of the bay. This was a historic environmental crime that was barely noticed. The Navy says they mitigated the release and that the PFOA and PFOS contained less than 25 parts per billion (25,000 parts per trillion.). This is a massive amount! They understand their criminality. Some in their ranks and among those they hire understand these things.
Neither the Navy, the state, nor the college will admit the threat to public health from the Navy’s use of PFAS. The press won’t cover it unless they’re from overseas. The Navy says the contaminants don’t leave their facilities. The state says they’ve tested oysters, crabs, and fish and, in most places, they’re OK to eat.
The Maryland Department of the Environment falsified oyster data when they tested oysters from my creek, employing analytical trickery. They tested for 14 PFAS compounds, but their detection limits were set at 1,000 ppt for each compound, so even though some compounds had many hundreds of parts per trillion in the oyster, the state said they were not detected. The state says there are no PFAS in my oysters.
My seafood and blood test results tell a different story. I have eaten thousands of oysters, crabs, and fish from this creek.
“Crabs and oysters have tested below levels of concern,” John Backus of the Maryland Department of the Environment explained during a Dec. 7, 2023 webinar. I had previously reported 2,070 ppt of PFAS in an oyster and 6,650 ppt in a crab. Another lost battle.
At the very least, don’t eat the mustard in your crabs! It’s like liquid PFOA, with a dash of dioxin, PCBs, and mercury. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) tends to bioaccumulate in crustaceans while PFOS bioaccumulates in fish - up to 4,000 times the levels in the river.
The state tested a Largemouth Bass at the mouth of Piscataway Creek at the Potomac River and reported 94,200 ppt of PFOS in its fillet. The state says it’s OK to eat this fish. Meanwhile, the EPA says we should not consume more than 4 ppt of PFOS in drinking water.
December 10, 2023 - The waterfront at St. Mary’s College of Maryland with its carcinogenic foam. I took the photo, and I took a sample of the foam on that day. It contained 1,680 ppt of total PFAS with 1,310 ppt of PFOS.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland lampooned my warning of PFAS contamination in the St. Mary’s River in this 2020 press release. They tested the water and said they found 1.7 ppt of PFOS. They did not address the contamination of seafood, my chief complaint.
They wrote, “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.”
Michigan warns the public about the foam.
Too bad the federal government isn’t a player. It can’t when the DOD is behind so much of the contamination. The DOD dictates environmental policy in these matters and most states fall in line. When Michigan tried to sue the military over the contamination, the DOD countered by arguing they had ”sovereign immunity” from prosecution. This means the U.S. government claims the right to poison its own citizens in the name of national security, and Maryland is fine with this arrangement.
My rivalry with the college and the state goes back nearly 50 years when I was the editor of the student newspaper, The Empath. I graduated from the college in 1977, making enemies on issues pertaining to financial transparency and political expediency.
Dead plant life along the banks of the tidal pond
at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The college
sprays the toxic herbicide Roundup here.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland sprays Roundup along the banks of the tidal pond in the center of the campus. Roundup contains the toxin glysophate. It’s similar ro PFAS because it affects humans, fish, oysters, and crabs by impacting our reproduction, growth, and survival. Like PFAS, Glyphosate disrupts the human thyroid.
The EPA says Roundup is safe, while the World Health Organization says it is not. There is some hope that the Trump-Kennedy team may get more on the ball with the Roundup and the PFAS.
PFAS in my blood and the environment
Please take some time to study this spreadsheet on PFAS concentrations in seven environmental media in the St. Mary’s River watershed:
My blood,
Webster Field groundwater,
Foam on my beach,
Foam at St. Mary’s College of Maryland,
Oyster meat,
Crab backfin, and
Rrockfish fillet.
Blood serum is typically reported in ng/ml. (1 ng/ml = 1 ppb = 1,000 ppt)
Check out Masters of Health Magazine!
They have featured me in their current issue. This magazine will help us to make sense of the multiple health catastrophes we face. It is a brave new world.
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.
The Downs Law Group employs attorneys accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist those who have served in obtaining VA Compensation and Pension Benefits they are rightly owed.