Prince George’s County, MD sues 3M, DuPont, and other toxic foam manufacturers over PFAS in waterways
Piscataway Creek, which drains Joint Base Andrews, is identified as a source of “alarming concentrations” of PFAS.
Suit overstates regulatory role of Maryland Department of the Environment while downplaying role of the Air Force.
By Pat Elder
January 26, 2022
This is the spot where the brown, oily waters of Piscataway Creek flow out of Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Notice the containment boom inside the base that is used as a floating barrier to temporarily contain oil and chemical leaks. Photo Pat Elder
Please Help us test surface waters draining from 9 DOD installations in VA, NC, SC, & FL. (See Below)
Prince George County, Maryland has filed suit in U.S. District Court against a group of 24 companies that manufacture Aqueous Film-Forming Foam, (AFFF), containing toxic PFAS. The chemicals have been recklessly used and discarded throughout the county. “For decades, PFAS-based AFFF products have been stored and used for fire suppression, fire training and flammable vapor suppression at hundreds of locations in fire training schools, military installations and civilian airports as well as petroleum refineries,” the complaint says. Prince George’s County borders Washington, DC on the east.
The $250 million lawsuit was filed on January 14, 2022. The complaint lists 3M, DuPont, Chemours, and others as defendants and accuses them of failing to warn the public that their products are harmful.
List of Defendants:
The suit claims, “The defendant’s normal, intended and foreseeable method of storing, using and disposing of AFFF products resulted in the discharge or release of PFAS directly into Prince George’s County environmental and infrastructure resources, causing injury to the county and its residents.”
The complaint charges that PFAS chemicals have become widespread in the environment, contaminating drinking water supplies, water infrastructure (including stormwater systems, water treatment plants, and drinking water delivery infrastructure), and posing an environmental and human health crisis in Prince George’s County and beyond.
Although JB Andrews is mentioned in the suit as a source of the contamination, the Air Force is not among the list of defendants. The county’s case minimizes its importance in the scheme of things. From the complaint:
"There are numerous facilities using AFFF products in and near Prince George’s County, including airports (such as the College Park Airport in College Park, Freeway Airport in Bowie, Potomac Airport in Fort Washington and Hyde Field in Clinton), helipads, firefighting training grounds, military bases and installations (such as Joint Base Andrews in Camp Springs and the former Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office in Brandywine), as well as industrial refineries and other facilities known to have utilized AFFF products on-site."
There have been releases from these civilian locations but they’re like squirt guns compared to the water cannons used regularly in more than a dozen buildings since the early 1970’s at JB Andrews. The base also used thousands of gallons of the toxic foams in burn pits for routine firefighting practice.
According to the complaint, “During firefighting and firefighting training exercises at or near these and other sites, firefighters sprayed PFAS-based AFFF, per its intended use, directly on or near the ground, caused it to be disposed and spilled it or otherwise caused it to be discharged or released into the environment. These activities resulted in discharges or releases of PFAS from Defendants’ AFFF products into nearby surface waters, groundwater, soil, and air, as well as water infrastructure including the County’s stormwater system.”
The suit envisions the near future when Prince George’s County, like other jurisdictions throughout the state, will likely be forced to upgrade its water infrastructure, “to manage, remove, control, and reduce the presence of PFAS in its resources and properties and in resources and properties of other jurisdictions.”
The suit specifically mentions Piscataway Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River, where “hazardous concentrations” of the toxins have been found, including fish tissue recently taken from Piscataway Creek.
Piscataway Creek originates at the end of the runway on the base. The drainage area has a high percentage of impervious surfaces as a result of the presence of the airfield and other base structures. Approximately 90 percent of the runoff in this drainage area is collected in an extensive storm sewer network that discharges through two 9-foot diameter concrete pipes into an open channel at the southern edge of the airfield pictured in the photo above. The creek also receives groundwater flow and surface water discharge from portions of the contaminated landfills and the toxic golf course. Throughout the world, US airbases, especially the runways, have been located so that surface water can easily drain from the runway.
Other bases in the state, like the Army’s Fort George G. Meade, and the Naval Research Laboratory - Chesapeake Bay Detachment, have comparable levels of contamination. No one wants to hear about it.
The suit overstates the role of the
Maryland Department of the Environment, (MDE)
The complaint inflates the role of the MDE in regulating PFAS. The lawsuit says the MDE has announced it is expanding its PFAS monitoring and sampling efforts and it is investigating “the presence of PFAS contamination in its public resources and properties under its ownership or management.” It sounds good, but it’s an overreach. The MDE has been reluctant to do much on the PFAS front. Their study of PFAS examined oysters but only detected levels above one part per billion. The MDE claimed oysters are free of PFAS when they’re actually loaded with the compounds. The state failed to react in 2018 when the US Geological Survey reported finding PFOS concentrations in a Smallmouth Bass totaling 574,000 ppt where Antietam Creek empties into the Potomac. The MDE downplays the threat to public health.
The fish advisory promulgated by the MDE for Piscataway Creek is farcical. The MDE says it's OK to have one meal per month of Redbreast Sunfish from the creek. A Redbreast Sunfish was found to contain 359,000 ppt of PFOS. The state says it’s OK to continue consuming unlimited amounts of most species of fish in the creek. The anglers along Piscataway Creek in Accokeek I’ve spoken to are unaware of the contamination.
The MDE says there is “not enough data to extend advisories to the much larger Potomac River - 301 Bridge to the DC line area.” It’s up to the MDE to generate the data! The agency is making excuses for its lack of attention to this pressing public health crisis. Almost all of the PFAS in our bodies comes from the food we eat, especially fish from contaminated waters.
Meanwhile, a few miles up the Potomac, the government of the District of Columbia has done nothing to protect public health from the ravages of these chemicals, despite the efforts of the DC Statehood Green Party. The Greens published a paper and have met with DC officials on the threat posed by PFAS. Both DC and Maryland fall under EPA Region 3, which has a poor track record on PFAS.
The MDE has tested 6% of the state’s community water systems for PFAS while many states have tested all of their systems. Massachusetts, for example, has tested all 3,184 of its community water systems. Much of Maryland’s testing has been completed in non-industrial and non-military communities.
Getting to work
Sherman Hardy holds water test samples we collected from the brown, smelly waters of Piscataway Creek flowing out of Joint Base Andrews. - Photo Pat Elder
Because the state was dragging its feet and neither the state nor the Air Force responded to our research or demands over the last two years, I tested the polluted waters of Piscataway Creek in September, 2021 with my colleague, Sherman Hardy from Clinton, Maryland.
We found 2,781.8 ppt of PFAS, including 894.7 ppt of PFOS. It means the fish are poisonous. Scientists know these things. The European Union has set a regulatory threshold of .65 ppt in surface water because of the propensity of these carcinogens to wildly bioaccumulate in fish. Prince George’s County exceeds the European limit by several orders of magnitude.
The MDE knew it had to do something. In October, 2021, when the MDE finally published its results from June, 2021 showing 3,452 ppt of total PFAS in the creek close to the base, it was a new ballgame in Maryland and it provided damning evidence for the plaintiffs. The state also revealed test results of 3,193 ppt in the creek for just three compounds: PFOS, PFOA, and PFBS.
Hardy wrote a hard-hitting letter to the editor of Southern Maryland News in November, 2021. In it he tells the story of collecting water samples from the creek near his home. The environmental activist and Air Force veteran sent alarming emails to dozens of Prince George’s County and state officials, warning of the unchecked environmental dangers inherent in the high levels of the carcinogens in the water. Hardy pointed out that most who fish from Piscataway Creek, which flows four miles from the base to Accokeek on the Potomac River, are African Americans who regularly consume the fish they catch. Hardy called out the Air Force and E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co., manufacturers of the deadly firefighting foam.
Hardy said, “I was upset when I got the results. I alerted my county, state and federal representatives so that they could issue warnings and begin mitigating work.” Apparently, the locals got the message. The state and the feds are part of the problem.
The locations of routine AFFF releases are shown in this Air Force graphic. Piscataway Creek is pictured flowing from the runway.
In this MDE graphic, PFAS levels are shown to decrease from 3,452.5 ppt near the base to 207.09 ppt in the tidal portion of the creek where it empties into the Potomac.
Note the concentration of 100.69 ng/g in a Largemouth Bass in the tidal portion of Piscataway Creek. That’s equivalent to 100,690 ppt while the MDE’s disappointing advisory says it’s OK to eat this fish 3 times a month. It’s important to develop an appreciation for the ratio between surface water concentrations for PFAS and concentrations in fish. 100,690 ppt over 207.09 ppt equals a rate of accumulation in the fish at 486 times the levels in the water.
The MDE gave a clean bill of health to the tidal portion of Nanjemoy Creek, more than 30 miles down the river. There, the water was found to contain 6.77 ppt of PFAS which they say is “significantly lower than the risk-based recreator screening criteria” they’re developed. The state found fish in Nanjemoy Creek up to 10,000 ppt. According to studies by the state of Minnesota, bioaccumulation factors may be as high as 7,000 ppt in some species so we should not be surprised to find fish with PFAS concentrations close to 50,000 ppt in that area of the tidal Potomac.
Of course, fish move around and they may visit super-contaminated areas in the river, like the Washington Navy Yard, the Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center, and the Navy Support facility, Dahlgren.
A closer look at JB Andrews
In July, 2021, the DOD unexpectedly revealed that JB Andrews had 33,000 ppt of PFOS and a shocking 435,000 ppt of PFOA in its groundwater. The Air Force had reported levels of 30,000 ppt for PFOS and 4,500 ppt for PFOA in groundwater in 2018.
The reporting of 435,000 ppt of PFOA was another game changer. It put the AFFF manufacturers more clearly in the crosshairs of the litigators. Only the former England AFB in Alexandria, LA (3.82 million); Naval Air Station Point Mugu, CA (1.71 million), Edwards AFB CA, (1.2 million), and former Plattsburgh AFB, NY, (981,000) have higher numbers for PFOA. Concentrations at several bases in Germany are likely to be worse.
We don’t know because our FOIA requests to the DOD are being ignored.
Several states have set levels under 20 ppt for these compounds in groundwater, figuring that many residents obtain their drinking water from wells, while recognizing that groundwater often seeps into surface water. Maryland has failed to take steps in this regard.
The military is free to continue contaminating Prince George’s County’s environment. Targeting the foam manufacturers is necessary and good, but it is something like going after gun manufacturers rather than the killers. The DOD dictates environmental policy in the U.S.
This region of Prince George’s County, Maryland joins the league of the most severely contaminated places on earth. There’s a kind of double-edged sword to the litigation. On the one hand, this is a potential gravy train for infrastructure projects the county will eventually have to complete, but on the other hand, it won’t help attracting business or tourists to the county.
Here, Air Force One is shown in Hangar 7 at Andrews. The red boxes house the overhead suppression system loaded with PFAS foam.
There have been multiple releases of AFFF from Hangar 7 which has a 1,000-gallon tank loaded with foam concentrate. There are no records of the exact dates or quantities released. There never are. Surface water drainage from Hangar 7 flows southwest into Meetinghouse Branch, contaminating the creek as the waters head toward the Potomac.
There are more than a dozen locations on base where massive quantities of AFFF were released into the environment.
There have been five documented AFFF releases in the hangar known as Building 3629. Three of the five known AFFF releases were complete system releases (2,000 gallons) occurring in the summers of 2003 and 2004 from sensor failures caused by electrical storms. The hangar’s drain empties into a 500-gallon underground storage tank that immediately fills up with AFFF and the rest seeps into the soil. Poor engineering like this is evident on Air Force bases worldwide.
Ansulite Aqueous Film Forming Foam
ANSULite 3% AFFF is a brand of Tyco Fire Products, LP, a defendant in the suit. Above, it is shown being stored in Building 3464. One drop can poison the water of 10 Olympic-sized pools.
Hangar 10, Building 3640 is a two bay hangar that houses multiple KC-135s and is equipped with an AFFF fire suppression system. The hangar uses AFFF manufactured by Chemguard, a defendant as well.
Fire Training Area 4 was used to test AFFF from 1973 to 1990. Approximately 300 gallons of jet fuel, used motor oil, and various solvents were ignited weekly and doused with AFFF.
The Air Force has never released records showing the amount of the carcinogens released here - or anywhere. The carcinogens were allowed to seep into the ground. In some instances, the toxins were discharged to the sanitary sewer system. The sanitary sewer system on the western side of JB Andrews discharges to the Piscataway WWTP, while the eastern half of the base sends sewage to the Western Branch WWTP which flows into Western Branch, less than a mile from the scenic Jug Bay on the Patuxent River. Don’t eat the fish.
Hangar 19 has had documented releases of AFFF. The PFAS migrated to the groundwater in the area, near the former Hare Berry Farm. The farm was used to grow strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry crops. In May 1992, during aircraft fire suppression system testing, approximately 500 gallons of AFFF were released directly into Piscataway Creek, a source of irrigation water for the crops on the farm. Following the release, the property owner requested that the Air Force evaluate whether the crops were safe for human consumption. The Air Force tested the crops in August 1992 and determined they were fit for consumption in accordance with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards. The Air Force purchased Hare Berry Farms in 1993.
Today, the FDA says there is no reason to stay away from particular foods because of concentrations of PFAS, even though eggs, milk, fruits, vegetables, and fish have been clearly documented with dangerous levels of the compounds. Fish have been caught near military installations with 10 million parts per trillion of PFOS/PFOA.
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Sources for this report:
Final Site Inspections Report of Fire Fighting Foam Usage at Joint Base Andrews Prince George’s County, Maryland May 2018 https://patelder.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/3/6/10362012/joint_base_andrews.pdf
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Our next campaign involves testing surface waters draining from Langley Air Force Base Virginia, Oceana Naval Air Station Virginia, Seymour Johnson AFB North Carolina, Myrtle Beach AFB South Carolina, Charleston AFB South Carolina, Shaw AFB South Carolina, Jacksonville Naval Air Station Florida, Jacksonville International Airport Florida, and Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. We need your dollars to make this happen.
We should have results from Hawaii soon. Please Help us with this new testing!
Thank you, Pat Elder