PFAS results from mainland Japan
By Pat Elder
November 20, 2023
Fishing in the Kanda River in Shinjuku, Tokyo. What’s in the water and what’s in the fish?
Our Veterans for Peace Speaking Tour sampled PFAS in 20 locations throughout mainland Japan from September 24, 2023 through October 10, 2023. We examined 15 surface water locations, 2 wells in Tokyo, and tap water in Kobe and Osaka. The chart below summarizes our findings. The lessons we learned in Okinawa apply here. Inland waters close to the use of PFAS on military installations showed the highest levels, while samples collected from tidal seawater had the lowest.
We were pleased to find that the sample collected near the outfall of the wastewater treatment plant at U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka showed minimal contamination, although we were precluded from entering the U.S. base to collect samples where we might have found higher levels. The water we collected was diluted by the influx of seawater. U.S. Forces Japan says it has installed granular activated carbon filter systems to clean water flowing from the base’s wastewater treatment plant and we have no data to refute that. The lesson here for Japan is that these effective filtration systems must be employed at all military and civilian wastewater treatment plants throughout the country. It will be a costly undertaking.
Click on the links to see the location of the sampling.
A summary of our findings at various locations follows this chart.
# Location PFOS PFOA Tot. PFAS
5054 Misawa Aomori 2 562.7 39.2 1,250.1
5059 Tachikawa, Tokyo well 385.1 25.9 696.0
5060 Kitamachi Park well Kokubunji 183.3 24.1 436.9
5034 Tsukimigaoka Tokushima 51.8 6 146.9
5032 Misumi-Cho Iwakuni City 22.7 10.9 51.2
5050 Misawa Aomori 1 16.1 5.2 47.8
5049 Komatsu Ishikawa 6.2 6 18.3
5045 Jinnoharu, Yahatanishi, Kitakyushu 3.1 2.1 15.5
5052 Yokosuka 1 3.7 0 3.7
5047 Monzen-Cho, Iwakuni Yamaguchi 3.5 0 3.5
5056 Tangocho Sodeshi, Kyotango, Kyoto 0 2.1 2.1
5048 Tsukimigaoka Seaside Park Matsushige 0 0 1.8
5051 Yokosuka 2 1.3 0 1.3
5053 Yokosuka 4 1.3 0 1.3
5041 US Navy Gate Yorozucho, Sasebo 1.1 0 1.1
5058 Yokosuka 3 0 0 1.0
5033 Sasebo River, Nagasaki 0 0 0
5062 Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyogo (Tap water) 1.3 4 8.2
5055 Toyonaka, Osaka (tap water) 4.7 4.9 18.9
5057 Toyonaka, Osaka (tap water with filter) 0 0 0
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Serious contamination at Misawa Air Base
The Red X is the site of the fire training area at Misawa Air Base. The Blue X shows the site where our team collected a water sample in the Itsukawame embankment about 500 meters away. The region is profoundly contaminated with PFAS. The base is shared by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Navy.
This photo of the sample site was taken 500 meters from the burn pit.
Surface waters draining from burn pits, untreated wastewater outflows, and landfills from military bases usually contain high levels of carcinogenic PFAS compounds throughout Japan and around the world. They’re poisoning the planet. It’s a terribly inconvenient truth because the chemicals bioaccumulate in fish. We have documented fantastic levels of PFAS in the filet of fish.
It didn’t shock us when we found 562.7 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFOS and 1,250 parts per trillion of total PFAS here. The nearby Anenuma Wakasagi Fishing Area and Lake Ogawara are likely to be highly contaminated.
We often have trouble accessing the areas of interest on military installations because of barbed-wire perimeter fences, sometimes several kilometers away from the source of the contamination. Japanese academics and activists frequently complain about the Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. that disallows access to military bases for testing environmental media. Here, we have a shared Japanese base that is contaminating the environment.
Streams, rivers and lakes near military bases in Europe, the U.S., and Japan are contaminated with PFAS and the fish are poisoned.
There are lots of poisonous PFAS compounds in the food the Japanese people eat that they’ve never heard of.
We also found 16.1 ppt of PFOS in the Misawa River about 2 kilometers before it empties into the sea. PFOS is most problematic because levels in fish may be 2,000 times higher than what’s found in the water. Meanwhile, the country is trying to keep drinking water under 50 ppt, a level critics say is several orders of magnitude higher than what is necessary to protect human health.
What’s in the water and the fish throughout the region?
Two wells near Yokota Air Base are severely contaminated
A well near the runway at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, Japan is heavily contaminated with PFAS. The U.S. Air Force accepts no responsibility.
Yukio Negiyama from Hino in western Tokyo tested two wells close to Yokota Air Base for us. The location of the well closest to the base shown above had PFOS at 385.1 ppt, PFOA at 25.9 ppt, and PFHxS at 160.1 ppt. The well is 15 meters under ground.
Negiyama and other residents formed The Group to Uncover Facts about PFAS Pollution in the Tama Area. They contacted Professors Koizumi and Harada from Kyoto University to organize a survey to check the levels of PFAS in residents’ blood. The scientists reported the average levels of hundreds tested to be above 20 parts per billion, a level the American National Academies of Sciences says is dangerous and merits a barrage of clinical tests to diagnose expected diseases.
The citizen group has continued its advocacy because Japanese authorities have failed to take steps to protect human health. Negiyama and the others want the Japanese government to test for contamination on the base.
The U.S. Air Force continues to sidestep the issue while certain media outlets continue to distort the nature of the problem.
Consider this recent damaging report from Stars and Stripes.
“The group now wants the Japanese government to conduct an on-base survey to check for PFAS contamination at Yokota since the fire-extinguishing foam was used there in the past and there were PFAS spills between 2010 and 2012.
In 2012, nearly 800 gallons of concentrated firefighting foam seeped into the ground from a storage tank at Yokota, according to an Air Force spill report cited in the Asia-Pacific Journal on Aug. 15, 2020.”
This newspaper and others have done a great job misrepresenting the truth and downplaying the threat to human health. The Air Force continues to use PFAS carcinogens in a host of applications at Yokota and similar bases across Japan. The PFAS is recklessly discarded. It contaminates the air, the soil, the groundwater, the surface water and all life. It never goes away. The toxins coat the banks of surface waters and are lifted into the air to settle in our lungs and our homes. Incineration only spreads the contamination over a wider area. Stars and Stripes continues to point to isolated accidents 12 years ago while refusing to address ongoing chronic use and contamination.
The Air Force is despicable. Elements of these lines reported by Stars and Stripes are found in similar releases to placate concerned communities around the world.
“All our PFAS systems have already been locked out so they can’t be used… Yokota’s 374th Airlift Wing is committed to protecting the health of personnel, their families and surrounding communities… We will continue to adhere to all relevant agreements, obligations and procedures as good stewards of our installations and environment.”
Meanwhile, back in Washington, the Pentagon told Congress last week that national security depends on the use of PFAS. The U.S. military relies on thousands of weapons and products such as cleaners, uniforms, batteries, and microelectronics that contain PFAS. Pentagon officials have told Congress that eliminating the chemicals would undermine military readiness. They tell Congress the truth while they lie to the Japanese public.
Mr. Yoshihide Wakamatsu had a pretty good idea where to test waters near the runway at the Tokushima Japan Air Self-Defense Force base.
We found high levels of PFAS in a canal that drains into the sea, adjacent to the runway. The Japanese government must get involved. Wakamatsu is shown on the left with the author.
At the Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station we also found PFOS draining into the sea at a concentration of 22.7 ppt, a significant level of concentration.
Tap Water
Tap water in Kobe had 8.2 ppt of total PFAS while the tap water in Osaka had PFAS at 18.9 ppt. There are millions of people around the world who would not drink this water knowing these levels. The PFOA in Osaka’s drinking water is more than a thousand times higher than the U.S. EPA’s interim lifetime health advisory. It is notable that a test of the water in Osaka after it had been purified by a Re-Cena Minimal Clusters Water Purifier showed no contamination. This underscores our contention that Japan can quickly rid its drinking water from these carcinogens while the surface water contamination presents the greatest challenge to Japanese health officials because of the propensity of many of these compounds to bioaccumulate in aquatic life.
We hope our efforts result in increased public understanding of this pressing human health issue. Japanese prefectural and federal governments have been in denial about this for too long.
Special thanks to Rachel Clark and Ken’ichi Narikawa with the Veterans for Peace Japan Speaking Tour for their work in helping to produce this data. Ken’ichi is shown here collecting a water sample from a canal at Komatsu Ishikawa. Ken’ichi employed the skills he earned as a naval commander with the Japanese Self Defense Forces to help gather samples from difficult locations.
Rachel Clark is pictured here in Kyoto with Dr. Akio Koizumi, a public health expert and professor emeritus at Kyoto University, in October, 2023. Rachel has been the director of the Veterans for Peace Japan Speaking Tour since 2016. She organized every detail this year’s tour. Dr. Koizumi is one of the nation’s top PFAS scholars.
Financial support from the Downs Law Group makes it possible for us to research and write about PFAS contamination in Japan and around the world.
The firm is working to provide legal representation to individuals in the U.S. and abroad with a high likelihood of exposure to trichloroethylene, PFAS, and other 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.
If you spent time in the military and you think you may be sick as a result of your service, think about joining this group to learn from others with similar issues. Are you interested in joining a multi-base class action lawsuit pertaining to illnesses stemming from various kinds of environmental contamination?
Join the Veterans & Civilians Clean Water Alliance Facebook group. (2.5 K members and growing rapidly.)