The seafood is contaminated throughout Florida and the military is largely responsible
By Pat Elder
July 18, 2022
The entrance from the Gulf of Mexico to Pensacola Bay is shown here. The Red X near the runway is the location of the fire training area on Naval Air Station Pensacola. Two miles away, the red marker in English Navy Cove is the spot where an oyster was found to contain dangerous levels of PFOS. The base has reported releasing high concentrations of the carcinogens.
Seafood from Florida’s waters is contaminated with per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS). The U.S. military and the state of Florida are directly responsible. The land, subsurface soils, aquifers, freshwater and seawater are saturated with these cancer-causing chemicals. Sadly, Florida is governed by Ron DeSantis, (R), who is the last guy to do anything about it. Florida is in trouble. Let’s examine this frightening threat to human health.
The NAS Pensacola oyster tissue contained 564,000 parts per trillion (ppt) of Per Fluoro Octane Sulfonic acid, (PFOS), a threat to anyone who consumes it. Let’s examine this concentration in light of the EPA’s recent action to lower the health advisory for two of the most powerful cancer-causing PFAS compounds - PFOS and Per Fluoro Octanoic Acid, (PFOA). Here, we’ll look at the amazing swimmer, PFOS.
In June, 2022, the EPA lowered its health advisory in drinking water from 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for either PFOS or PFOA to .02 ppt for PFOS and .004 ppt for PFOA. Basically, they’re saying these chemicals are harmful and we shouldn’t be consuming them. The EPA knows what’s going on. Up to this point, however, their advisories really haven’t done much to protect human health.
The new advisory for PFOS is set at .02 ppt in drinking water, so these oysters have concentrations of PFOS that are 28.2 million times over that limit. The seafood around military bases is poisonous and it continues to get worse because PFOS and other PFAS chemicals bioaccumulate in aquatic life – and in us.
Seven bases in the state have levels of PFOS in groundwater that are higher than the 126,300 ppt the Navy reported in Pensacola’s groundwater.
Eglin AFB is located on Choctawhachee Bay, very close to the Gulf of Mexico. An oyster from the bay at Postil Point, on Eglin Air Force Base, had 594,000 ppt of PFOS while the base has reported 535,000 ppt of PFOS in groundwater. The red X shows the location of releases of toxic foam.
An oyster collected in Watson Bayou (red marker, up top), about a mile from Tyndall AFB, contained 330,000 ppt of PFOS. The base reported groundwater containing 870,000 ppt of PFOS.
Fishing in Watson Bayou near Tyndall AFB
The Air Force is the last institution on earth, with the exception of the Navy, to fess up to these environmental crimes. The Air Force says, “There are multiple residential, public water supply wells and water production wells within a 4-mile radius of Tyndall AFB; however, the intermediate confining unit protects the Floridan aquifer, and Tyndall AFB is situated on a peninsula, so that the bays surrounding it act as a hydraulic barrier that prevents lateral migration from the surficial aquifer beneath Tyndall AFB to the surficial aquifer on the landward side. The human ingestion pathway is therefore incomplete.”
They’re poisoning the seafood. They won’t admit it and few are paying attention.
Thanks to the Environmental Working Group, we have these statistics without having to spend countless hours getting them. It’s not like the DOD is openly transparent about these things. Records are disappearing and many are only accessible by filing FOIA requests.
These carcinogens in oysters, courtesy of the military, remind me of the words of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who said, “There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”
We know the oysters are poisoned.
Scientists from the Florida International University (FIU) Institute of Environment recently reported testing 156 oysters from Biscayne Bay, Tampa Bay, and Marco Island, and 100 percent of them were contaminated with PFAS. Obviously, there are also non-military sources of these contaminants, but the state of Florida is taking very few steps to protect human health. Although the FIU study documented concentrations up to 134,780 ppt, several news stories reported that the levels of Tampa Bay oysters "indicated low risk from PFAS.” Biscayne Bay oysters had the highest levels of the compounds. This is the location of the now-shuttered Homestead AFB, with high levels of the toxins in groundwater.
Oysters in the Tampa Bay area had concentrations of 339,000, 387,000, 429,000, and 131,000 ppt of PFOS while MacDill AFB in Tampa Bay has groundwater with PFOS levels of 517,000 ppt and the EPA says the concentrations in groundwater shouldn’t exceed .02 part per trillion. We’re in trouble.
Results are in ng/g. (nanograms per gram = parts per billion, so we multiply by 1,000 to arrive at parts per trillion.
Perfluorooctane Sulfonate in Oysters, Crassostrea Virginica, from the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay, USA 3/1/02 K. Kannan, K. J. Hansen, T. L. Wade & J. P. Giesy Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology volume 42, pages313–318 (2002)
An oyster collected in the Chesapeake Bay very close to the fire training area on the Patuxent River NAS in Maryland, contained 1,106,000 ppt of PFOS.
The Florida Department of Agriculture says eating raw oysters may be hazardous to health, although cooking the oysters removes the pathogens.
They aren’t addressing the PFAS. They are primarily concerned about a bacterium known as Vibrio Vulnificus. There isn’t a restaurant in Florida that can cook PFAS-contaminated oysters hot enough to “kill” the PFAS. These are fire-fighting chemicals! Even municipal incinerators cannot destroy these chemicals.
Florida has fish advisories in effect due to mercury poisoning for various species of fish in marine waters. Generally, the state advises people to limit consumption from once a month to eight times a month. Because of the mercury, women who are pregnant or may become pregnant are advised not to eat: Blackfin Tuna, Cobia, King Mackerel, Little Tunny, and Shark. Who knew?
But what about the PFAS, PCBs, PBDEs, chlordane, dioxins, and pesticides? These contaminants can be especially harmful to the developing fetus and generations of the unborn. We need to deal with this.
What’s in your seafood?
What about other critters?
There’s not a lot of data documenting PFAS in sea life in Florida. Research often depends on scarce state and federal dollars. This 2018 study sheds some light on the contamination.
National Institute of Standards and Technology March 29, 2018
Exposure to PFOS significantly increases chromosomal aberrations. Could this be the end of the Bottlenose Dolphin as we’ve known it? Let’s clean it up for Flipper!
Let’s examine the scant fish tissue data we have for Florida, courtesy of the EPA in 2014.
We shouldn’t be eating this fish, although Florida, like most states, does not have fish or shellfish consumption advisories for PFAS – and neither does the EPA.
This is what Florida Health is saying about the fish:
“If you're of childbearing age and/or pregnant: Despite common fallacies, there are plenty of safe, delicious fish options for pregnant or soon-to-be pregnant women to enjoy right from a grocer's seafood department. Fish are especially wonderful for women who are expecting because they provide so many nutrients for boosting a baby's growth, development and intellect.”
Speaking of common fallacies, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, studies in humans have shown that exposure to tiny amounts of PFOA and PFOS may cause birth defects, premature deliveries, stillbirths, and problems with the nervous system development.
Perhaps it’s all fake news and Florida has it right.
Some farm-raised fish may have little or no PFAS contamination. We don’t really know because these things aren’t regulated by the state or the federal government and they don’t seem to be in a hurry to find out.
Florida Fire Training Centers
There are at least 26 Florida Fire Training facilities across the state and many, if not all, have used PFAS in their fire training programs. The groundwater, surface water, and soils in these areas are likely to be highly contaminated. For instance, the soil in Ocala is saturated with 210 million parts per trillion of PFOS and 400,000 ppt of PFOA.
See Environmental Working Group’s PFAS map.
In addition to the Florida military installations identified above, the DOD has identified 17 additional bases where the DOD is performing an assessment of PFAS use or potential release.
It's time for Florida to begin taking these carcinogens seriously. New research has shown a very strong correlation between levels of PFAS in our blood and our ability to fight COVID and other infectious diseases. We know these chemicals are linked to a host of cancers. California considers PFOS and PFOA to be carcinogens and is acting accordingly. With the EPA on the sidelines, states like Florida can still pretend the threat doesn’t exist.
We need to raise money again – this time to test fish in south Florida. We want to examine the fish that most commonly appears on the menus of seafood restaurants, like: Mahi-Mahi, Flounder, Swordfish, Grouper, Snapper, and Yellowfin Tuna. It’s tough to know where the fish were caught and it’s even tougher to know the specific source of the contamination in the tidal waters. Regardless, we can get a pretty good idea of how bad it is. We’re seeking the truth and sometimes it costs money to find it.
We have to spend $300 per test, using one of the same firms the military uses. We also have to hire a scientist because our results would be discredited otherwise. We’d like to raise $10,000. Thank you for the $6,000 we raised earlier this year for water testing at military installations.
Thanks to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) for making this possible. Please help us do this with a donation!