Washington ― The U.S. Air Force is pushing back by up to five years the expected start of construction for PFAS remediation in the area around the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in northern Michigan, where military activities left behind PFAS compounds that leached into waterways and drinking water wells.
The development prompted questions this week from Michigan lawmakers who pressed Air Force leaders on the reasoning behind the delay and asked them to reassess.
“That’s 25 years after contamination was first identified in the state, and we just can’t keep this community waiting forever,” U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, said during a Senate Armed Services hearing.
“Certainly, the community deserves to have more detailed answers than they’re getting right now.”
U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, also expressed disappointment with the Air Force’s latest Wurtsmith briefing that indicated officials intend to reduce the scope of the long-promised cleanup in Iosco County, near the beaches of Lake Huron.
Bergman accused the Air Force of having “made a public promise and … now constructing a scientific rationale to walk it back.”
“The community of Oscoda has endured more than a decade of contamination, broken promises and institutional whiplash from the Air Force, and I am running out of ways to explain to my constituents why the service they trusted with their community continues to treat them this way,” wrote Bergman, who chairs the Armed Services subcommittee responsible for authorizing funding for every Air Force installation.
“They deserve a clear answer and a clean aquifer.”
PFAS refers to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are man-made compounds that don’t degrade in the environment and have been linked to health issues including low birthweight, cancer and reduced immune system functioning. PFAS are found in products such as nonstick cookware, food packaging and firefighting foam used by the military to train for combating fires involving jet fuel.
The military is responsible for investigating and cleaning up the PFAS pollution at sites like Wurtsmith and Camp Grayling under the federal Comprehensive, Environmental Restoration, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
The timeline change for CERCLA remediation in Oscoda is due to officials’ decision to expand the remedial investigation phase of the work near Wurtsmith due to changes to “regional screening levels,” an Air Force spokesman said Thursday.
The addition of newly regulated PFAS compounds also created “data gaps” that need to be investigated before the the remedial investigation can be finalized, said Mark Kinkade, a spokesman for the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center.
“The updated timeline also reflects funding and contract sequencing, site complexity, and seasonal fieldwork limitations in northern Michigan,” Kinkade said by email.
Due to the expansion of the remedial investigation phase, that pushes back dates for other downstream phases, including the feasibility study, proposed plan, record of decision, remedial design and construction, as each phase depends on completion of the phase before it, Kinkade said.
Kinkade stressed that interim measures, cleanup and protection efforts that have been underway for a decade in Oscoda will continue.
He also said the timeline change is not related to the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule announced Monday that would rescind and delay Biden-era federal standards for some of the PFAS pollutants. Those are not yet finalized.
“If there are changes in law, then we look to the Office of the Secretary of War for our next steps,” Kinkade wrote. “DAF is committed to sharing updates to the community as we progress.”
Bergman conveyed in his letter to Meink that the Air Force has deemed the data underlying a 2023 commitment for PFAS removal from the Pentagon to be “anomalous” ― that is, collected from a temporary sampling point using an outdated analytical method and unable to be replicated.
The Air Force is now putting forward new data that suggests the contamination at Wurtsmith is shallower and narrower than previously believed and implying the new scope and design of the remediation will be altered substantially, Bergman said.
“… Presenting new findings that conveniently reduce the scope and promised cleanup without robust, transparent, independent validation is not going to be accepted by this community, and it will not be accepted by this subcommittee,” Bergman wrote, referring to the “credibility problem” the Air Force has earned in Oscoda.
“The men and women who served at Wurtsmith, and the families who lived in its shadow, deserve better than a decade of delays, revised commitments and data that keeps changing.”
From Meink, Bergman requested, within 30 days, information on the Air Force’s timeline for making a final determination on the scope and design of PFAS cleanup at certain areas of Wurtsmith.
He also wants the service to commit in writing that the eventual remediation at Wurtsmith will achieve compliance with the 2024 maximum contaminant level set by the Environmental Protection Agency of 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS.
‘I don’t think they’re taking it seriously’
Community members are upset by the additional delays to the timeline as the Air Force takes time to “redo what was done wrong,” said Tony Spaniola, an attorney, Oscoda homeowner and co-chair of the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network.
“We are in year 17, and we don’t have a cleanup plan. I mean, that’s a long time, and the first 15-16 years we just got horsed around. Now, we’re trying to get back on track. But in the meantime, we have health advisories up the wazoo,” Spaniola said. “People are being exposed, and we need to have action quickly.”
Multiple state health advisories warn residents against ways they could be exposed to the PFAS contamination in the Oscoda area, i.e., don’t eat the fish or deer, don’t touch the foam on lakes and streams and, in certain places, don’t drink the water.
Spaniola met Thursday in Oscoda with leaders from Air Force Secretary Meink’s office and said his understanding is the five-year extension is a worst-case scenario and the forecasted timeline is “not set in stone.” Air Force officials plan to have their Technical Working Group refine that timeline and try to scale it back, Spaniola said.
Part of what prompted the shift, he said, is that the Air Force is reviewing prior officials’ timelines and saying they were too optimistic.
“Realistically, we all know that a big reason for these delays is because the original remedial investigation was not done properly,” Spaniola said.
He was referring to problems identified in the original work to determine the nature and extent of the PFAS contamination, including, for example, where the contaminant plumes are, how far they go and what they consist of.
“I do think they are taking it seriously,” Spaniola said of Air Force leadership. “We still have to see the results, but I do think there’s an awareness and understanding at the leadership level that didn’t exist before. There’s some reason for hope there.
“Unfortunately, it’s a sad fact of well over a decade’s worth of mismanagement here at Wurtsmith that this is happening.”
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink pressed for answers
U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, pressed Meink on Thursday during the Senate hearing. She said the Air Force in recent years has been working more productively with residents on the ground in Oscoda, but the plumes of contaminants continue to spread, including under lakes where a YMCA summer camp is located, she said.
“This long precedes you, but I just ask you to think about what it’s like to be a family in that community, and be some of the residents there have the highest PFAS blood levels of anyone in the entire world,” Slotkin said.
“They have been put off and put off and put off since 2010. We finally got to a decent commitment, and yesterday we’re told it’s another five years. I have to ask that you pull in the troops, your people on the ground, and say, what are we doing to this community?”
Meink responded that he wasn’t familiar with the five-year delay for remediation in Oscoda but would “get to the bottom” of where it’s coming from.
“I will get back to you on it, but we are not changing our commitment,” Meink said.
mburke@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Air Force delays start of PFAS cleanup at Wurtsmith for up to 5 years
Reporting by Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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