Firefighting foam/PFAS use would be extended under new defense bill

Under the new version of the bill, phaseout of the chemicals would be delayed by a couple of years, said Jared Hayes, a senior policy analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group.

The language delaying the phase-out was introduced in the House version, Hayes said in an interview Wednesday.

The move feels like a step backward, he said. “It allows the purchasing of a-triple-f (aqueous fire fighting foam) once again, something that has been banned for the DOD to do since 2023.”

That could result in more contamination by the so-called “forever chemicals” known as PFAS — per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances — at military installations, according to the group.

“More pollution would increase long-term cleanup costs and undermine years of investment in safer alternatives to the toxic chemicals,” the group said in a statement.

A message seeking comment was sent to a media representative of the House Armed Services Committee.

A 2020 defense bill required the military to stop purchasing foam with PFAS chemicals by 2023. The Air Force said in early 2023 that it had shut down aqueous fire fighting foam or “AFFF” fire suppression systems at 1,038 facilities out of 1,095 that used the foam.

Such fire suppression systems were locked out at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as of March 1 that year, a spokeswoman for the 88th Air Base Wing said at the time.

The House was readying to vote Wednesday on the $900 billion, 3,086-page defense spending and policy bill, a result of negotiations between the Senate and the House. It was unclear when the Senate might vote.

However, the same bill calls on the Pentagon to accelerate cleanup efforts and expand access to clean drinking water to more contaminated households, the environmental group also said.

The bill’s provisions seem to contradict each other, Hayes said.

“It runs counter to expedited clean-up if you’re just going to cause more contamination,” Hayes said.

Leaders at Wright-Patterson have long said that they are working to deal with the presence of PFAS chemicals in the ground on and near the base.

In a tour of the base this past summer, base environmental staff members showed members of the media monitoring wells on the base’s Area B. There are also wells on the base’s Area A and near the interchange of interstates 70 and 675, where a Marine Corps Harrier crashed in 1997.

Wells and trench systems intercept and filter surface and groundwater flows at dozens of locations across the 8,100-acre base, seeking to capture and filter out PFAS chemicals 365 days a year.

Given the speed at which those involved say the systems have been built in recent years, Wright-Patterson finds itself in an environmental spotlight, serving as a “test case” for other military installations also trying to deal with the chemicals, Terry Bauer, construction quality control manager for Weston Solutions, told the Dayton Daily News in June.

“We expect this is going to be a growth type of industry for quite a while. This is kind of a test case,” he said.

The base said in March this year that since 2014, more than $61 million had been invested in environmental efforts at Wright-Patterson, which the base said “includes extensive PFAS monitoring and the installation of treatment systems to address PFAS contamination in groundwater and surface water.”