Military Poisons

Maryland county allows dense development over fire training area

By Pat Elder
June 16, 2026

This map shows PFAS contamination in surface waters downstream of the former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy in Rockville, Maryland, where firefighting foams containing PFAS were historically used during training exercises. The striped corridor marks the Maryland water-contact advisory area along Muddy Branch Creek, while sampling locations MB8 and MB9 document contamination extending through a residential watershed near the former training grounds.

NBC4 Washington recently reported that PFAS contamination has been discovered in a creek and pond system near the former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy in Rockville. The report included a map showing contaminated surface waters, sampling locations, and a water-contact advisory area. The contamination has been traced to historical firefighting activities at the former academy, where firefighting foams containing PFAS were used during training exercises for decades.

Maryland maintains a statewide firefighter training network through the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute (MFRI), which operates six regional training centers serving every part of the state. In addition to these state-supported facilities, many counties operate their own fire academies and public safety training centers, including facilities in Montgomery, Carroll, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Howard, Prince George's, and Washington counties. These facilities have trained generations of firefighters and emergency responders, often using live-fire exercises and, historically, firefighting foams containing PFAS.

Dozens of firefighter training grounds, burn pits, foam-training areas, airport fire-training facilities, and military fire-training sites have operated throughout Maryland over the last fifty years. These facilities routinely discharged aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), the same PFAS-laden foam responsible for widespread contamination at military bases throughout the state.

Military Poisons has documented PFAS contamination at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Joint Base Andrews, Fort Meade, Fort Detrick, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Webster Field, the Naval Research Laboratory Chesapeake Bay Detachment, Forest Glen Annex, and several former military facilities throughout Maryland. At the same time, the organization has repeatedly warned that firefighter training academies, airports, and other non-military facilities have also created contamination patterns similar to those found on military bases.

The Maryland Department of the Environment has been reluctant to investigate, publicize, regulate, or clean up any of this. Maryland is behind many states in this regard.

Mongomery County planning documents provide disturbing details.

The former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy property consisted of approximately 44.84 acres at 9710 Great Seneca Highway in Rockville, Montgomery County, approved the disposition of essentially the entire site for private redevelopment as "The Elms at PSTA," (Public Safety Training Academy) a project containing roughly 630 residential units plus retail and open space. The academy closed in 2016, and the county subsequently sold or agreed to sell the property to the developer.

Montgomery County still owns land immediately adjacent to the former academy. Planning documents identify a 6.25-acre county-owned parcel south of the redevelopment site, currently occupied by the County Innovation Incubator and the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. The county also retained and received additional land associated with a potential future school site (Parcel V), which planning documents describe as approximately 6.5 acres.

‍Hundreds of homes are being built on property that served as Montgomery County's primary police and firefighter training facility for roughly forty years. The question that now demands an answer is whether Montgomery County or MDE investigated the property for PFAS contamination associated with historical firefighting activities before approving the redevelopment.

Given the well-established association between firefighter training facilities and PFAS contamination, it is difficult to understand how a comprehensive PFAS investigation was not publicly discussed before the site was approved for redevelopment. Firefighter training centers have been recognized nationwide as major PFAS source areas for years.

The planning documents note that a stream and approximately 3.35 acres of stream buffer run through the eastern portion of the former academy property and drain toward Muddy Branch.

The Maryland Department of the Environment recommends that all private well owners, regardless of location, have their well water tested at least once a year to ensure that their water is safe to drink and to include PFAS in that testing. The agency ought to be identifying well owners much further away and it ought to be providing these services. They dropped the ball.

‍It is important that the public be provided with the analytical results for each PFAS compound detected in the creek, pond, groundwater, and air. This is precisely the type of information the Maryland Department of the Environment has been hesitant to release at other severely contaminated PFAS sites around the state.

Although most PFAS compounds are not volatile, several compounds, especially PFOS, which is likely to dominate the chemical signature here, can attach to soil particles and become airborne. The carcinogens saturate the banks of the creek. When the water recedes, the toxins dry in the sun and are lifted by the wind into our lungs and into our homes as dust. The dust is a major PFAS pathway to small children. People living nearby should have their houses tested and they should change their air conditioner filters regularly. Sweeping and vacuuming ought to be traded for wet-mopping.

Since 2019, I have been writing about Maryland’s PFAS contamination associated with firefighter training activities. In 2021, when elevated PFAS levels were discovered in drinking water wells serving Westminster and Hampstead, I publicly questioned whether the Carroll County Public Fire Training Center was contributing to the contamination. At the time, I argued that Maryland should move beyond testing drinking water wells and begin identifying actual contamination sources through groundwater and surface-water investigations. My concern was that firefighter training facilities had used PFAS-containing foams for decades and were being overlooked as potential contributors to contamination. I sent all of my work to the Maryland Department of the Environment. They know the score.‍

The analytical data collected from Muddy Branch are essential for a host of reasons, but mostly because PFAS compounds can accumulate in fish. The EPA has reported that PFOS may bioaccumulate in fish up to 4,000 times the amount in the water. Streams and retention ponds near firefighter training facilities have been documented with PFOS concentrations in the hundreds and thousands of parts per trillion. Under such conditions, fish may contain PFAS concentrations in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of parts per trillion. One fish outside a fire training area in Michigan had 10 million parts per trillion in its filet.

‍The county health department must strive to identify those who have consumed fish from these waters. The county should also offer blood testing to individuals who may have been exposed to PFAS through consumption of the fish. The state will not do it.‍ ‍

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has established guidance for PFAS blood levels and recommends clinical follow-up for individuals with more than 2 parts per billion of seven different PFAS compounds. Residents should not be forced to pay out of pocket to determine whether they have been exposed to chemicals released from a government-operated facility. But, government agencies may balk at the idea, so If people living in these nice new homes ought to know a PFAS skin prick test is available for $279 from Empower DX.‍ ‍

We must demand complete transparency. The state and the county should release the full analytical results for every PFAS compound detected at each sampling location, including surface water, groundwater, sediment, fish tissue, and any other environmental samples collected during the investigation. The public cannot adequately assess the risks posed by this contamination without access to the underlying data.

The contamination discovered near the former Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy is not an isolated incident. It is the predictable consequence of decades of PFAS use at firefighter training facilities throughout Maryland. The question is no longer whether these facilities contaminated groundwater, streams, ponds, fish, and nearby communities. The question is how many sites remain uninvestigated, how many people have been exposed, and why state regulators failed to act sooner despite years of warnings.‍‍ ‍

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I’ve written 80 articles on PFAS contamination emanating from fire training areas in Maryland. Here are two:

Bad News for Westminster (MD) and the Surrounding Region – February 2, 2021

Here, I identified the Carroll County Public Fire Training Center as a potential PFAS source and asked, "Where's the PFAS coming from in Westminster?"

https://patelder.weebly.com/westminster-md--pfas.html?utm_source=

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Small Naval Facility in Southern Maryland Causes Massive PFAS Contamination - April 15, 2021

This article connected extremely high PFAS concentrations to a naval fire station and historical firefighting foam use.

https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/small-naval-facility-in-southern-maryland-causes-massive-pfas-contamination?utm_source=‍ ‍

By Pat Elder
June12, 2026

Damhussøen, a large lake in the heart of Copenhagen,
is lovely, but the water and fish are poisoned.

Denmark may possess some of the most extensive PFAS monitoring data in Europe, yet the results from the Forever Pollution Project reveal contamination levels in fish, sewage sludge, and surface waters that challenge the assumptions underlying European PFAS policy itself. Thousands of measurements collected by Danish authorities show that PFAS contamination is not confined to a handful of industrial sites or military installations, although they are leading sources of contamination.

The chemicals appear throughout military, industrial and residential wastewater systems.  Urban watersheds, aquatic food webs, and agricultural waste streams are profoundly impacted across the country. The Danish data reveal a simple but troubling reality. PFAS get around. They move through wastewater systems, surface waters, fish, wildlife, sewage sludge, and agricultural landscapes with remarkable efficiency. The picture that emerges is of contaminants that have become embedded in modern society, spreading through environmental systems like a cancer that has metastasized.

The Danish results are alarming. Fish collected from Copenhagen's Damhussøen contained approximately 355,000 nanograms per kilogram of total PFAS. That’s the same as 355,000 parts per trillion. In the absence of fish consumption advisories, many people assume the fish are safe to eat. But the government's silence should not be mistaken for a declaration of safety. At the same time, Denmark and the European Union are working to keep these chemicals below 100 parts per trillion in drinking water.

Sludge, Surface Waters, and Fish

Sewage sludge samples in Denmark reached concentrations exceeding 70,000 nanograms per kilogram (parts per trillion) of total PFAS while Denmark continues to recycle sewage sludge to agricultural land. In contrast, the state of Maine banned the land application of sewage sludge entirely after PFAS contamination from biosolids was shown to cause widespread contamination of milk and eggs. Several U.S. states have now adopted legislation. Michigan allows land application only when combined PFOS/PFOA concentrations are below 20 µg/kg, although many in the scientific community claim this is too high.

The PFAS in sludge poisons soil, crops, farm animals, humans, groundwater, and surface water. The chemicals may never break down, so it is miserable public policy to allow these carcinogens to be spread on agricultural fields. When the rains come, the contaminants act like a giant coffee percolator, creating a witch’s brew of lethal leachate.

Macbeth’s three witches chanting “double double toil and trouble. For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Surface waters throughout Denmark show dangerous levels of PFOS that wildly bioaccumulate in plant and animal living tissue.  Yet, while the European Food Safety Authority has established a low health-based threshold for PFAS exposure, European Union regulations continue to permit the sale of fish containing PFAS concentrations that exceed the threshold after only a few grams of some fish are consumed. Denmark's data-rich record therefore exposes a question that extends far beyond its borders: are European governments measuring a public-health crisis that existing policies are simply not equipped to address?

Denmark's monitoring network has revealed widespread PFAS contamination, but it fails to provide a complete picture of where contamination originates or how it moves through the environment. The available data provide little insight into military sources, despite decades of military activity at air bases, naval facilities, and training grounds that have recklessly contaminated our world.

The Danish data reveal contamination that should command public attention. Fish collected from Damhussøen contained approximately 311,000 ng/kg PFOS and roughly 355,000 ng/kg total PFAS.  

(Let's identify these pesky acronyms. PFAS represent all 40,000  per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances known to exist, while PFOS is an abbreviation for per fluoro octane sulfonate, a particularly deadly PFAS compound.)

A review of publicly available reporting and government communications found no evidence that the astonishing Damhussøen fish results has been reported in the press.

Such concentrations are alarming because PFOS are carcinogenic and fish are typically the leading pathway to human ingestion. According to U.S. EPA research, PFOS concentrations in fish tissue can reach 4,000 times the concentrations found in surrounding water. PFOS levels in the single digits in lakes and streams may therefore produce heavily contaminated fish.

SLUDGE

The top five PFAS sludge concentrations in Denmark based on the Denmark wastewater-treatment-plant dataset used in the Forever Pollution / Le Monde project.‍ ‍

Photo - Horsens Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, (Horsens Centralrenseanlæg)

Four of the five highest concentrations in Denmark were associated with large urban wastewater systems serving major population centers.

Sewage sludge can be transported long distances by truck or ship before land application.  The location of a wastewater treatment plant, therefore, does not indicate where PFAS-contaminated biosolids are ultimately spread.

The location of the plant does not reveal the military bases, airports, or industrial sources responsible for initially introducing PFAS into the sewer system.

The Le Monde/Forever Pollution data reveal that PFAS contamination in Danish sewage sludge is widespread and, in many locations, extraordinarily high. Analysis of the Danish wastewater-treatment-plant dataset identified several sludge samples containing tens of thousands of nanograms per kilogram of total PFAS.

Sewage sludge serves as a major reservoir for PFAS collected from households, industry, commercial activities, and urban runoff. The sludge data also demonstrate that PFAS contamination is not limited to a handful of military and industrial  locations but is distributed across wastewater systems throughout the country.

Because Denmark has historically recycled sewage sludge to agricultural land, these findings raise important questions about the long-term movement of PFAS from wastewater systems into soils and drainage waters.

SURFACE WATER - Top 5 PFAS Surface Water Sites in Denmark

Highest reported total PFAS concentrations in surface water samples from the Denmark EPA dataset.

Given the rural setting and the apparent absence of industrial or military activity, the contamination near Alstrup (Guldborgsund) may be more consistent with historical sewage sludge application or other wastewater-derived sources that have dispersed PFAS across agricultural land.

At first glance, PFAS concentrations in surface waters may seem modest when compared to the extraordinarily high concentrations found in sewage sludge, where levels can be several orders of magnitude greater than those measured in streams, rivers, and lakes. Yet these findings are highly significant because PFAS, particularly PFOS, can accumulate dramatically in aquatic food webs. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reported bioaccumulation factors for PFOS in fish of up to 4,000 times the concentrations measured in surrounding water.

 Because PFAS are highly persistent and continuously transported through rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, contamination that appears modest in the water column can ultimately result in substantial concentrations in aquatic, terrestrial, and human life.

BIOTA

Top Five PFAS Biota Concentrations in Denmark

The highest PFAS concentrations in Danish biota were recorded in samples collected from lakes and stream systems.

The most contaminated sample was collected from Damhussøen in Copenhagen, where total PFAS concentrations reached 355,080 ng/kg fresh weight, including approximately 311,000 ng/kg of PFOS alone.

Although the PFAS Data Hub classifies these samples only as 'biota,' the reporting units, monitoring locations, and PFAS profiles strongly suggest that many represent fish collected under Denmark's national environmental monitoring program.

The absence of species information in the publicly available dataset limits interpretation because PFAS accumulation can vary substantially among fish species, shellfish, and aquatic invertebrates.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the European Union's independent scientific agency responsible for assessing risks related to food, animal feed, nutrition, animal health, and environmental contaminants. The agency has developed guidelines for PFAS consumption.

The EFSA’s “tolerable weekly intake” is 4.4 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per week for the sum of PFOS, PFOA, PFNA, and PFHxS. Increasing numbers of scientists argue that no levels of PFAS are safe because the carcinogens bioaccumulate in our bodies. The EFSA’s tolerable weekly intake is a scientific health benchmark, not a legal limit.

.

Damhussøen Fishing in Denmark is a nationally supported Danish fishing portal that publishes fishing regulations and site-specific guidance.‍ ‍

How much PFOS is in this tiny piece of contaminated fish?‍ ‍

• The piece of fish shown on the scale weighs 0.08 grams.

• Fish from Damhussøen have been reported to contain 311,000 nanograms per kilogram (ng/kg) of PFOS.

• That is the same as 311 ng PFOS per gram of fish.

• Therefore, the tiny piece of fish shown here contains approximately 25 nanograms of PFOS. (311 ng/g × 0.08 g = 24.88 ng PFOS)

• EFSA’s Tolerable Weekly Intake = 4.4 ng/kg body weight/week

• Child's weight = 25 kg

• Child’s weekly intake = 4.4 × 25 = 110 ng/week

• PFOS in fish piece = 24.88 ng

• 24.88 ÷ 110 = 0.2262

‍ The 25 nanograms of PFOS in the tiny piece of Damhussøen fish represents approximately 23% of EFSA's recommended maximum weekly intake for a 25-kilogram child. The child could consume four of these tiny pieces a week.

‍ Now, let’s consider a meal

• A typical serving of fish weighs about 200 grams.

• A 200-gram serving of Damhussøen fish would contain approximately 62,200 nanograms of PFOS.(311 ng/g × 200 g = 62,200 ng)

• For a 25-kilogram child, that is about 191 times EFSA's recommended weekly intake. (62,200 ng ÷ 325 ng = 191)

• "Bon appétit!"

The concern is not that a child becomes sick after eating a single meal. Rather, the concern is that PFOS accumulates in the body over time. Prenatal and childhood exposures have been linked to reduced vaccine effectiveness, impaired immune function, behavioral problems, elevated cholesterol, and developmental effects. Scientists have found that even very low levels of PFOS in the blood affect children's health, which is why European regulators established the threshold in the first place.

EFSA does not regulate food. It provides scientific advice to the European Commission and member states. The tolerable weekly intake is essentially a warning threshold developed by toxicologists and epidemiologists. Exceeding it does not trigger a fine or make a fish illegal to eat. Instead, it indicates a level of exposure that EFSA believes may pose health concerns, particularly over a lifetime,

There are no obvious virtual public records of specific, prominent Danish public fish advisories for Damhussøen and other bodies of water comparable to the advisories commonly issued by U.S. states around military bases. Denmark has focused more on environmental monitoring rather than fish consumption bans or advisories.

Europe's leading scientific health benchmark for PFOS exposure

‍Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915 on food contaminants sets maximum concentrations for high-profile PFAS in food. The limits apply to four compounds: PFOS, PFOA, PFNA, and PFHxS.  

‍These ten PFAS are frequently found in fish. Their combined total may exceed that of the four EU-regulated compounds: PFUnDA, PFDA, PFTrDA, PFDoDA, PFHpS, PFDS, PFPeS, PFBS, 6:2 FTS, FOSA   

‍See Table 1 below. If higher concentrations are discovered in laboratory tests, the product must be removed from the market.‍‍

We already saw that the EFSA says a 25-kg child should not exceed 110 nanograms per week from these four PFAS combined.

Now, let’s look at the Commission's legal maximum for perch, whitefish, char, eel, roach, smelt, etc.:

• 45 µg/kg (sum of the four PFAS).

• Convert that to nanograms:  (or ng/g)

• A fish at the legal limit would therefore contain 45 ng PFAS per gram of fish.

• How much fish would a 25-kg child need to eat to reach EFSA's weekly limit?

• 110 ng  ÷ 45 ng/g  = 2.4 grams of fish.

In other words:

A perch or whitefish containing PFAS at the maximum concentration allowed under EU food law would cause a 25-kg child to reach EFSA's entire weekly intake after eating only about 2.4 grams of fish.

That's less than a bite.

For a 70-kg adult: 4.4 × 70 =3 08 ng/week

308 ÷ 45 = 6.8 g

An adult would reach EFSA's weekly intake after eating only about 7 grams of fish at the legal limit.

Again, that's a tiny amount of fish.

It’s time for Europe to wake up to the nightmare of PFAS. The EFSA reports that for PFOS and PFOA, "Fish and other seafood" was the most important contributor to dietary exposure. EFSA's 2018 assessment  estimated that up to 86% of dietary PFAS exposure from food came from "fish and other seafood."

According to EPA research, PFOS concentrations in fish tissue can reach thousands of times the concentrations found in surrounding water. Even relatively modest PFOS levels in lakes and streams may therefore produce heavily contaminated fish.

The sludge data are equally troubling. The highest concentration identified in the Danish dataset occurred in Horsens, where sewage sludge contained approximately 70,700 ng/kg total PFAS, including about 67,000 ng/kg PFOS. The median sludge concentration in the Danish data is approximately 24,900 ng/kg total PFAS, indicating that elevated contamination is not confined to a handful of isolated locations. Because sewage sludge has historically been spread on agricultural land, PFAS contained in sludge may migrate into soils, crops, groundwater, drainage systems, and nearby surface waters.

Denmark's extensive monitoring effort raises an obvious question: if so much attention has been devoted to PFAS elsewhere, what do we know about Greenland?  Coming up in Part 2.

By Pat Elder
June 10, 2026

See the District Council’s statement here.

1. "It has not been confirmed that these substances originated from the site."

This is the most vulnerable statement in the Council's response. The statement leaves readers with the impression that the origin of the contamination remains largely unknown. The evidence suggests otherwise.

The former RAF Upper Heyford was operated by the U.S. Air Force for decades and hosted activities widely recognized as major sources of PFAS contamination, including the use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) in fire-training exercises, emergency response operations, hangar suppression systems, and fuel-handling areas. Historical records document practices that allowed firefighting foams, fuel mixtures, and other wastes to enter the environment.

Hundreds of brooks and rivers draining from U.S. Air Force bases worldwide have demonstrated similar PFAS contamination, although not at these ghastly levels.

The chemical profile of the contamination provides an unmistakable line of evidence. The PFAS detected in Gallos Brook are dominated by PFOS and PFHxS, compounds that are widely recognized as characteristic components of the legacy 3M firefighting foams used extensively at U.S. Air Force installations worldwide. This PFOS/PFHxS signature has been repeatedly identified at military airfields and fire-training areas and is one of the most recognizable fingerprints of historic AFFF contamination. The combination of this chemical fingerprint, the location of the contamination, and the documented history of firefighting foam use at Upper Heyford makes the former airbase the obvious source of the contamination.

It is, however, possible there may be other sources, including private and public entities who may be contributing a small fraction of the contamination and therefore, are ultimately liable for damages, once a thorough investigation has been completed. At multiple U.S. Air Force bases of comparable size, several hundred sites have been examined in surface water, soil, subsurface soil, groundwater, and sediment. 

Even the most strident skeptics among you will eventually come to understand the scourge of these chemicals.

2. The statement ignores the magnitude of contamination

One of the most striking features of the Council's response is what it does not say. At no point are readers informed of the actual PFAS concentrations measured in Gallos Brook.

This omission is significant because the severity of contamination cannot be understood without discussing concentration levels. A stream containing a few nanograms per liter of PFAS presents a very different situation from one containing tens of thousands of nanograms per liter. The Council acknowledges the presence of PFAS but never explains whether the detected concentrations are low, moderate, or exceptionally high. The same tactic has been used for ten years by governments worldwide. England is dreadfully behind the learning curve.

The result is that the public is deprived of the context necessary to evaluate the seriousness of the contamination. Without discussing the actual measurements, the response risks portraying a significant and threatening environmental issue as a routine regulatory matter.

3. "There is no evidence to suggest an immediate risk to the health of residents."

This phrase is frequently used by government agencies dealing with environmental contamination, but it deserves careful scrutiny.

The statement refers specifically to an "immediate" risk and to "residents." It does not say there is no long-term risk. It does not say the contamination is harmless. It does not say that fish are safe to eat, that wildlife is unaffected, or that exposure pathways have been adequately characterized.

Nor does the Council call for the comprehensive environmental and public health investigation that the situation warrants. The response contains no commitment to expanded surface water monitoring, fish tissue analysis, groundwater investigations, soil sampling, household dust testing, air monitoring, or biomonitoring of residents through blood testing. Without such measures, it is impossible to fully understand the extent of contamination, identify all significant exposure pathways, or assess the long-term implications for nearby communities.

The absence of evidence of an immediate health emergency should not be mistaken for evidence of safety. PFAS contamination is often characterized by chronic, low-level exposure occurring over many years through water, food, soil, air, dust, and other environmental pathways. Determining whether such exposures are occurring around Upper Heyford requires additional investigation, not reassurance based on incomplete information. Given the frightening concentrations reported in Gallos Brook and the former airbase's history of firefighting foam use, a comprehensive environmental assessment should be regarded as a necessary next step rather than an optional precaution.

Most of the health concerns associated with PFAS arise from long-term exposure over many years. Scientific studies have linked certain PFAS compounds to elevated cholesterol, immune system suppression, thyroid disease, developmental effects, kidney cancer, and testicular cancer. The absence of an immediate health emergency should not be confused with the absence of a significant public health concern. The Council's language attempts to reassure residents without adequately explaining the nature of the risks that PFAS contamination presents over time.

4. The response avoids discussing fish and wildlife

Perhaps the most important omission in the entire document is the absence of any discussion of fish and wildlife.

PFAS are well known for their ability to bioaccumulate. The concentrations in water become substantially higher in aquatic organisms as these chemicals move through food webs. This is one of the principal reasons PFAS contamination is regarded as a public health and ecological concern around the world.

The Council discusses water quality, planning controls, and drinking water supplies, but never addresses whether fish, aquatic organisms, sediments, or wildlife have been tested. Nor does it discuss whether fish consumption advisories or ecological assessments may eventually be warranted. By focusing almost exclusively on drinking water, the response overlooks one of the most significant pathways through which PFAS can affect both humans and ecosystems.

The ecological story begins in the sediments of Gallos Brook. PFAS accumulate in stream sediments and are taken up by aquatic invertebrates—the insects, worms, crustaceans, and other tiny organisms that form the foundation of the aquatic food chain. These organisms are consumed by small fish, which in turn are eaten by larger fish, birds, mammals, and other predators. At each step, PFAS can become more concentrated in the tissues of living organisms. The contamination therefore does not remain confined to the water itself; it moves through the ecosystem.

The result is a contamination pathway that extends far beyond the brook. Fish, birds, otters, foxes, and other wildlife may all be exposed through the food chain. Ultimately, humans may also be exposed through the consumption of contaminated fish and other locally harvested foods. Without testing sediments, aquatic invertebrates, fish, and wildlife, regulators cannot accurately assess the full environmental consequences of the contamination or determine the extent to which PFAS have become embedded within the Gallos Brook ecosystem.

The Council's statement also fails to acknowledge another important exposure pathway: contaminated air and dust.

PFAS, particularly PFOS, bind strongly to soils, sediments, and organic matter. Along the banks of Gallos Brook, contaminated sediments are deposited during periods of high water. As water levels recede, these sediments dry in the sun and can be broken down into fine particles by weather, foot traffic, maintenance activities, and wind. Once airborne, contaminated dust can be inhaled directly or carried into nearby homes, schools, and workplaces, where it may accumulate over time.

Exposure to PFAS is therefore not limited to direct contact with contaminated water. Scientific studies have increasingly identified household dust as an important pathway of human exposure, particularly for children. Contaminated dust can be inhaled, ingested, or tracked indoors from contaminated outdoor environments. Yet the Council's response contains no discussion of dust sampling, air monitoring, soil testing along the brook, or any effort to determine whether PFAS contamination is moving beyond the waterway itself and into the surrounding community.

This omission is particularly troubling because PFOS, the dominant compound detected in Gallos Brook, is a carcinogen that has been associated with serious health concerns and is classified as a human carcinogen. None of these issues are addressed in the Council's statement.

5. The focus shifts from pollution to planning

Residents concerned about Gallos Brook are primarily asking questions about contamination, environmental damage, and responsibility. Yet much of the Council's response focuses instead on planning procedures.

Large portions of the statement describe how future planning applications will be assessed, how contamination studies may be required, and how remediation conditions can be imposed on developers. While these are legitimate responsibilities of the Council, they do not directly address the concerns that prompted the public response.

The central questions remain: How severe is it in multiple environmental media, and how far has it spread? Who will investigate it?

The Council's statement never addresses perhaps the most important practical question: Who will pay? If further investigations confirm extensive PFAS contamination originating from the former airbase, the costs of characterization, long-term monitoring, ecological restoration, and remediation could ultimately reach tens or even hundreds of millions of pounds. Will those costs fall on local taxpayers, developers, the British government? The United States government will not admit wrongdoing and will not agree to any form of compensation.

6. Claims regarding remediation are vague

The Council states that land contamination was assessed and remediated where necessary during previous phases of redevelopment. However, no evidence is provided that PFAS were specifically investigated as part of those assessments.

This distinction is important because much of the redevelopment at Heyford Park occurred before PFAS became a major focus of environmental regulation. Many contamination investigations conducted during the 1990s and early 2000s concentrated on petroleum hydrocarbons, solvents, heavy metals, and other traditional pollutants. In numerous cases throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere, PFAS were not included in testing programs at all.

Consequently, a statement that contamination was assessed and remediated should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that PFAS contamination was identified, characterized, or addressed. The public deserves clarity regarding whether PFAS were actually analyzed during those earlier investigations.

7. PFAS are no longer merely an "emerging" issue

The Council characterizes PFAS as an "emerging national issue." While that description may once have been appropriate, it no longer reflects the state of scientific knowledge.

PFAS have become one of the most extensively studied classes of environmental contaminants in the world. Governments across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia have established drinking water standards, issued fish consumption advisories, restricted certain PFAS compounds, funded major research initiatives, and pursued legal action against manufacturers and polluters.  England is dreadfully behind.

Describing PFAS as an emerging issue risks minimizing the depth of scientific understanding that already exists. The challenge facing regulators today is not whether PFAS are a concern, but how best to manage contamination that has already become widespread.

Conclusion

The Council's statement is notable, not for what it says, but for what it leaves unsaid. It does not discuss the extraordinary concentrations measured in Gallos Brook. It does not address fish, wildlife, sediments, household dust, or the potential for PFAS to move through food webs and into surrounding communities. It offers reassurance while proposing no comprehensive investigation capable of determining the true extent of contamination. These omissions matter because PFAS are among the most persistent and extensively studied pollutants in the world. They do not simply disappear. They accumulate in ecosystems, concentrate in living organisms, and remain in the environment for generations.

The residents of Upper Heyford deserve more than carefully worded assurances and planning discussions. They deserve a transparent, independent investigation of surface water, groundwater, sediments, fish, wildlife, soil, air, and human exposure pathways. They deserve clear answers about responsibility, long-term health implications, and the potentially enormous costs of remediation. The central question is no longer whether PFAS contamination exists in Gallos Brook. The evidence has already answered that. The question is whether public officials will confront the problem with the urgency, transparency, and scientific rigor it demands, or continue to manage public concern while the contamination remains in place.

 

 

 

 

How the U.S. Air Force Poisoned an English Watershed

By Pat Elder
May 29, 2026

Left - The fire training area at US Air Force RAF Upper Heyford, England.  

Right - The same training area today. Although the base closed in 1993, the contamination remains  - and may forever.

The red dot shows the location of the fire training area at RAF Upper Heyford.  The blue dot is the location of the water sample taken from Gallos Brook, 1.5 km  south.

A water sampling test commissioned by a group of Upper Heyford, England residents calling themselves “Gallos Brook” has revealed some of the highest concentrations of carcinogenic per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS), anywhere on earth. See the group’s website here: https://gallosbrook.wordpress.com/

Three decades after firefighting operations ceased at the U.S. Air Force base RAF Upper Heyford, laboratory testing detected PFOS, a lethal PFAS compound, at 27,823 parts per trillion (ppt), and total PFAS concentrations at 42,177 ppt.  

The PFOS levels are 42,804 times higher than the European surface water safety threshold of .65 ppt.  The contamination does not remain confined to streams. PFAS migrate into dust, fish, wildlife, food - and human flesh and blood.

The BBC reported, “The source of the stream, known as Gallos Brook, is an aquifer from within the old airbase, however, the source of the contamination is not known.”   Actually, the contamination profile reads like a chemical fingerprint of military firefighting foam. The pollution is dominated by Per fluoro octane sulfonate (PFOS), and Per fluoro hexane sulfonate, (PFHxS). These are compounds historically associated with aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) used extensively at military airfields.

The water sample also contained a complex mixture of precursor chemicals still degrading and transforming into new generations of terminal PFAS decades after the original releases occurred. Rather than behaving like an isolated spill from the distant past, the chemistry suggests a vast, aging reservoir of contamination that continues migrating through groundwater and seeping into the English watershed today.

While higher PFAS levels have been reported near fluorochemical manufacturing facilities in Decatur, Alabama and Zwijndrecht, Belgium, the concentrations documented near RAF Upper Heyford place the site among the most severely contaminated military-associated PFAS hotspots publicly identified anywhere in the world.

Most rivers and streams documented in Europe and North America measure PFOS in the tens to hundreds of parts per trillion for PFOS, with severe hotspots remaining below a few thousand parts per trillion.  A major cross-European PFAS investigation coordinated by Le Monde and the Forever Pollution Project identified hundreds of heavily contaminated sites across Europe, yet publicly documented surface-water PFOS concentrations above  20,000 ppt remain rare outside major fluorochemical manufacturing zones. The Upper Heyford results therefore place the site in the category with the world’s most extreme PFAS contamination, despite the fact that firefighting operations at the base reportedly ceased more than thirty years ago.  ‍ ‍

National Study points to US RAF bases
as most toxic locations in England ‍

‍Gallos Brook 
- Photo https://gallosbrook.wordpress.com/

A national study of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in aquatic environments of England provided the first comprehensive snapshot of PFAS contamination across England’s waters. The study, published in 2026, analyzed water from 850 locations in rivers, groundwater, and coastal waters. PFAS were detected at most sites, with levels climbing as high as 2,021 parts per trillion (ppt) in a section of Gallos Brook 3.5 km south of the Gallos Brook Community Group sample.

The top three most severely contaminated locations in England were former or active RAF bases and included RAF Fairford and former RAF Moreton-in-Marsh. Surface waters draining from civilian airports and wastewater treatment plants were also found to be contaminated across the country.

_______________________________________________________________________________

PM Promises action on chemicals 43k times standard.

‍ ‍

Calum Miller, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bicester and Woodstock

Sir Keir Starmer has said he will "make sure" that the "appropriate steps are taken" to tackle 'forever chemical' contamination at a former RAF base. The prime minister had been responding to Bicester and Woodstock MP Calum Miller, who raised concerns over the contamination at the former RAF Upper Heyford in parliament on Wednesday.

It comes after local residents paid for independent testing in a stream near the historic airbase, which found levels of 'forever chemicals' 43,000 times higher than environmental standards.

Calum Miller, Member of Parliament for Bicester and Woodstock (Oxfordshire),  said the Environment Agency currently has "no plans for regular monitoring" at the site. "The Gallos Brook in my constituency has the highest concentration of forever chemicals in the country," he added.

Sir Keir responded, ‘I’ll make sure that the detail is looked at and that appropriate steps are taken.’

Upper Heyford demonstrates what happens when decades of military PFAS use intersect with modern redevelopment, incomplete environmental oversight, and the near scientific impossibility of recalling these chemicals once released. ______________________________________________________________________________

They didn’t give a damn and they still don’t

‍The U.S. Air Force has known about the devastating health risks associated with aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) since the early 1970s, yet much of this information was withheld from public view by the military, the U.S. government, and manufacturer 3M. Investigative reporting by Sharon Lerner at the Intercept helped expose the extent to which internal warnings and toxicological concerns surrounding PFAS-containing firefighting foams were concealed for decades.

There is nothing novel here.  PFAS are frequently described in the British press as “emerging contaminants,” although the chemicals themselves are decades old. The contamination is not emerging, recognition of the crisis in the UK is.

Secrets surrounding PFAS were closely guarded at U.S. military installations, particularly overseas, where environmental oversight, public disclosure laws, and independent monitoring were frequently weaker or virtually nonexistent. ‍

The Environment Agency for England and Wales has known of the hazards associated with PFAS in the environment and the foam for almost 30 years. ‍

One of the most troubling aspects of PFAS contamination is that governments and scientists still do not understand what ‘appropriate steps’ actually are once these chemicals have spread through groundwater, rivers, sediments, fish, wastewater systems, air, and the food chain. There is still no proven large-scale remediation strategy capable of removing PFAS from complex natural environments once contamination becomes widespread.

The first “appropriate steps” ought to include a robust government-sponsored testing regime together with the creation of a centralized, publicly accessible repository for PFAS sampling results. At present, the United Kingdom’s approach to PFAS monitoring and disclosure remains highly fragmented. Responsibility is scattered across local councils, water companies, the Environment Agency, the Ministry of Defence, the UK Health Security Agency, and private consultants, with no unified national database allowing the public to track contamination trends across groundwater, rivers, soils, sediments, fish tissue, sewage sludge, or military sites. ‍

In many respects, the UK remains years behind the United States, and especially behind several U.S. states that have developed far more aggressive PFAS testing, disclosure, and regulatory systems. States such as Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maine, and Massachusetts have established statewide monitoring programs, enforceable drinking water standards, fish consumption advisories, interactive contamination maps, publicly searchable datasets, and mandatory reporting requirements for utilities and industrial facilities. The UK is about ten years behind some of these states.

‍The contrast is particularly stark around military contamination. In the United States, despite enormous shortcomings, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, (CERCLA) process has at least generated extensive public records, plume maps, and site inspection reports, at hundreds of military installations. Not so in the UK

The UK is dreadfully behind.  If someone is able to talk to the Prime Minister, they may wish to explain that the current responses worldwide remain experimental, fragmented, and enormously expensive.

Pump-and-treat systems, which extract contaminated water from groundwater, can operate for decades while removing only a fraction of the contamination. Critics liken the method to sinking a few drinking water straws into a watermelon the size of an aircraft carrier. The pump and treat method extracts contaminated water from the groundwater, cleans it, and injects the cleansed water back into the ground. The process creates highly contaminated filters that scientists still do not know how to dispose of properly.

There is no evidence that PFAS-contaminated materials from RAF Upper Heyford were specifically transported to the nearby landfill or energy-from-waste facility. Relatively little large-scale excavation or remediation may have occurred at the site. However, it is well established that modern landfills and municipal incinerators routinely receive PFAS-laden materials from a wide range of industrial, military, commercial, and consumer waste streams. The broader concern is therefore not limited to Upper Heyford specifically, but to the growing challenge of managing PFAS-contaminated waste once these chemicals enter the disposal system.

‍ Landfilling doesn’t work. It allows the chemicals to drain off.

‍Landfilling PFAS-contaminated waste at a site like the old Ardley Landfill near Bicester does not destroy the chemicals.  Although the original Ardley landfill closed in 2015, the threat posed by buried PFAS waste does not end when a landfill stops accepting trash. The buried waste remains chemically active for centuries, and perhaps forever, continuously generating contaminated liquid leachate.

‍PFAS are extraordinarily mobile and highly water soluble. When contaminated soils, sediments, sewage sludge, spent granular activated carbon filters, or foam concentrates are buried, rainwater percolates through the waste mass and creates leachate, a chemically contaminated liquid formed as water dissolves and mobilizes compounds from decomposing refuse.  Waste from residential communities also contains PFAS. Think of PFAS-treated clothing and furniture.

‍Unlike many conventional pollutants that bind tightly to soil or break down biologically over time, many PFAS compounds readily migrate with water. The landfill essentially becomes a long-term chemical reservoir that slowly releases contamination into surrounding hydrological systems.

The leachate itself forms continuously. Rainfall infiltrates the landfill cap and buried waste, dissolving soluble compounds along the way. PFAS are especially problematic because they resist both biodegradation and natural attenuation. Even modern landfills equipped with liners and leachate collection systems are not closed systems forever; liners age, seams fail, pipes crack, and groundwater gradients continue moving beneath and around disposal cells. The resulting leachate is often sent to wastewater treatment plants that are likewise incapable of fully removing PFAS, meaning the chemicals are frequently reintroduced into rivers through treated effluent or concentrated into sewage sludge.

‍In effect, landfill disposal does not eliminate PFAS contamination. It merely transfers the chemicals from one environmental compartment to another — from contaminated soil and filters into groundwater, streams, wastewater systems, air emissions, sludge, and downstream ecosystems.

A Department of Defense Report on critical PFAS uses published in 2023 reads like a catalogue of PFAS dependency across the military-industrial supply chain. Prepared in response to Congress and amid growing state restrictions on PFAS-containing products, the report identifies numerous PFAS uses the Pentagon considers “critical to national security,” including applications in weapons systems, aircraft, ships, electronics, batteries, seals, gaskets, lubricants, textiles, firefighting systems, and specialized coatings. The document is remarkable because it shows that PFAS are not limited to firefighting foam; they are embedded throughout military procurement and sustainment. Every one of these products eventually enters the waste stream, spreading PFAS through disposal, incineration, landfilling, wastewater, dust, and contaminated scrap.

‍Incineration cannot destroy the carcinogens

‍Municipal incinerators like the Viridor Ardley Energy-from-Waste facility near former RAF Upper Heyford typically operate at temperatures around 850°C (1,562°F), the standard required for ordinary municipal waste combustion in Europe. Those temperatures are insufficient to completely destroy PFAS. Research reviewed by the European Environment Agency suggests that full destruction of PFAS may require sustained temperatures up to 1,400°C.

‍Incomplete combustion can generate additional toxic fluorinated byproducts, ultrashort-chain PFAS, and hydrogen fluoride gas. Rather than eliminating the chemicals, incineration may simply redistribute them through stack emissions, fly ash, wastewater, and residual ash streams.

The issue becomes especially important if contaminated pump-and-treat filters, PFAS-laden sludge, or heavily contaminated soils and sediments from military sites were ultimately sent to municipal incinerators like Ardley. In that scenario, the contamination would not disappear. Instead, PFAS particles and gases would be dispersed through the atmosphere over large areas. Airborne PFAS can travel more than 150 kilometers from a single emission source, raising concerns that incineration may transform a concentrated contamination problem into a much broader regional air pollution pathway. This graphic illustrates the extent of the problem.

The uncomfortable reality is that modern industrial societies created tens of thousands of highly persistent fluorinated compounds before developing any coherent plan for how to remove them from the environment once released. That scientific and regulatory ambiguity sits at the center of the PFAS crisis. Britain still doesn’t get it.  Prime Minister Starmer said he would make sure that appropriate steps are taken. We’d all love to see the plan.

Now, let’s examine what the Gallos Stream community group has reported.

‍ ‍PFOS at 27,823 ppt comprises 66% of the total amount of PFAS in the stream.

“Terminal” PFAS compounds such as PFOS, PFHxS, and PFOA are the highly persistent end-products that tend to accumulate in groundwater, surface water, sediments, fish tissue, and the food chain. Many of the precursor compounds detected at Upper Heyford gradually degrade over time into these terminal PFAS, meaning the contamination can continue generating PFOS, PFHxS, and PFOA type compounds long after the original releases occurred. The coexistence of both abundant precursors and high concentrations of terminal PFAS strongly suggests a large, aging AFFF-related contamination source that is still chemically evolving within the environment.

The ground is like a gigantic carcinogenic sponge soaked with PFAS. Firefighting foam was repeatedly discharged onto the same unlined training grounds for decades. The U.S. Air Force intended for the foams to seep into the ground, rather than to escape into surface waters.

When a stream cuts through or intersects a contaminated groundwater plume, the result can be astonishingly high PFAS concentrations in localized sections of the waterway. In many cases, the stream itself is not the original source. Rather, it acts as a discharge point where contaminated groundwater is emerging continuously from the banks, sediments, or shallow subsurface. This is why concentrations can suddenly spike in one section of a stream while being much lower elsewhere.

We don’t know a lot because of a lack of a comprehensive testing regime by authorities. Generally, high rainfall levels prior to testing will provide greater concentrations from the surface stream itself. Periods of drought may increase the proportion of contamination from groundwater seepage.

Accidental and intentional releases
of AFFF suppression system

During the period when RAF Upper Heyford was operational, the U.S. military relied on PFOS-based AFFF manufactured primarily by 3M under MIL-F-24385 specifications, and these foams were used across its global installations, including bases in the United Kingdom.‍‍‍ ‍

Although documentary confirmation for specific shelters at RAF Upper Heyford remains elusive, USAF records make clear that foam-based suppression systems were widely used throughout Air Force aircraft maintenance and shelter facilities during the Cold War era. At major tactical fighter bases such as Upper Heyford — where dozens of F-111 aircraft operated continuously under NATO alert conditions — repeated foam releases associated with fire suppression testing, maintenance operations, emergency response drills, and hot refueling activities likely represented an important long-term source of PFAS contamination.

In the 1980s-era Air Force hangars, systems like the one shown used an aeration process to turn a small amount of concentrate into large volumes of firefighting foam.

3% AFFF liquid concentrate was mixed at 3 parts concentrate to 97 parts water. That water–foam solution was then pushed into a foam generator, whipping the liquid into a thick, expanded foam, something like shaving cream.

Imagine if you were getting ready to wash the car and you added detergent to a gallon of water. It would not create bubbles. But if you poured in a few ounces of detergent and you sprayed it with a high-pressure hose it would create overflowing bubbles. It’s the same principle.

3% aqueous film-forming foam, (AFFF) in 55-gallon drums.

Public records show more than a hundred accidental AFFF releases at military installations in the US and just one in the UK. There may be more. Given fragmented reporting and decades of untracked incidents, the true number in the UK could reasonably extend into the mid hundreds. Unintended AFFF releases were most often caused by maintenance errors, electrical faults, false alarms from detection systems, mechanical failures, and improper testing. 

Although there are very few UK press articles specifically documenting accidental AFFF or firefighting foam releases, one notable case occurred at RAF Fairford in July 2007, when approximately 50,000 gallons of firefighting foam  and water were accidentally discharged from a hangar suppression system after a faulty diverter valve failed to contain the release. The foam entered nearby waterways and eventually the River Thames.

A 50,000-gallon firefighting foam discharge using a 3% AFFF mixture would contain approximately 1,500 gallons of AFFF concentrate and 48,500 gallons of water.

RAF installations historically operated fixed hangar suppression systems containing AFFF. Accidents resulted in hundreds or even thousands of gallons of AFFF foam concentrate to be emptied into the environment.

How much foam?‍ ‍

The 2018 Site Inspection at Joint Base Andrews near Washington demonstrates that accidental releases of firefighting foam were not isolated or extraordinary events, but rather a recurring feature of military aviation operations over many decades.

The report documents numerous accidental discharges, full-system failures, fire-training exercises, and uncontrolled releases from hangars, fire stations, fuel-cell maintenance areas, and former fire training areas. Several incidents involved massive quantities of foam at J.B. Andrews.   

Joint Base Andrews just outside of Washington
is the home to Air Force One.

Building 3629 was the presidential hangar where the president’s plane was housed. Investigators identified five documented AFFF releases, including three complete system discharges of approximately 2,000 gallons of concentrate each. That’s in one building.

Intentional releases

In a 2013 routine test at Travis AFB, CA, 1,000 gallons of suppressant generated a six-foot-deep foam blanket across an 85,000-square-foot aircraft hangar (2 acres) within five minutes. See this video of a routine test.  2,000 gallons of concentrate could produce enough foam to fill a 2-acre hangar with 12 feet of foam.

Air Force preliminary assessments and site inspections frequently reference routine testing and training discharges from hangar suppression systems, but they omit the exact frequency. The systems themselves, however, were generally governed by NFPA 409 aircraft hangar fire protection standards which required full-system discharge testing. These were not rare events. At RAF Upper Heyford, where multiple hardened aircraft shelters and maintenance hangars handled JP-4 and JP-8 fuel systems, the cumulative releases from decades of testing, maintenance, false activations, training exercises, and emergency responses were likely enormous.

Fire Training Areas

Air Force Fire Training Areas (FTA’s) were used weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.  The fire training areas were typically 100 feet in diameter and the one at Upper Heyford looks to be that size.

This description is taken from the AFFF Site Inspection at Joint Base Andrews:

“Former Fire Training Area 4 (FTA-4) was used for fire training activities from 1973 to 1990. Records indicate that approximately 300 gallons of a mix of JP-4, motor oil, and possibly solvents were released to the burn area through the fuel distribution system during weekly exercises. Standard practice for the exercises was to release the combustible liquids into the burn area, ignite them, then extinguish the fire with AFFF. The quantity of AFFF used during these exercises was not recorded.

Excess foamy liquid generated during the exercises flowed across the burn area into the oil/water separator (OWS). Oil was collected for off-site disposal. Residual foam and water passed through the OWS and flowed to a 44,700-gallon capacity leaching pond with gravel at the bottom. Liquids typically seeped through the gravel into the ground; also, the leaching pond often became plugged, causing the pond to overflow and discharge fluids to the ground surface. In some instances, the excess fluids were collected and transported to another OWS for discharge to the sanitary sewer system.”‍ ‍

This appears to be a concrete runoff collection tank at Upper Heyford, located just downslope of the fire training area.  ‍ ‍

The collection tank likely functioned as a simple runoff collection and settling feature rather than an oil-water separator. Systems like this were designed to channel fuel- and foam-laden runoff away from burn pits, not to contain or treat dissolved contaminants. As a result, they served as direct conduits for PFAS migration into the ground.

The food chain is poisoned

Surface water contamination at these levels has produced staggering bioaccumulation elsewhere.

At Holloman AFB in New Mexico surface water was reported to contain 5,900 ppt of PFOS at nearby Holloman Lake. (compared to 27,823 ppt at Upper Heyford) Scientists reported the findings shown here in wildlife.

The Holloman Lake data show that PFOS contamination in surface water can translate into staggering concentrations in wildlife tissue, especially liver. If similar environmental pathways exist at Upper Heyford, the reported PFOS levels in Gallos Brook raise urgent questions not only about the stream itself, but about PFAS movement into plants, invertebrates, fish, birds, small mammals, livestock, and the broader human food chain.

PFAS are commonly found in human blood, and English residents in exposed communities can have very high levels. In Bentham, North Yorkshire, recent testing linked to PFAS firefighting-foam production found some residents and former workers with “alarming” blood levels; one former worker reportedly had 405 ng/mL, far above U.S. clinical risk thresholds.

For context, PFAS blood results are usually reported as ng/mL in serum, which is equivalent to parts per billion in blood serum. U.S. health agencies and the National Academies now treat combined PFAS serum levels above 2 ng/mL as a level where exposure-reduction and medical follow-up should be considered. Levels of PFAS above 20 ng/mL are considered to be dangerous.

What’s in your blood, Upper Heyford?

The foam gathers almost every day from the Webster Field Annex of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Maryland, directly across the creek.

My blood contains 42.16 ng/mL of PFAS, according to a study of Marylanders considered to be at risk, conducted by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.  The Navy base used PFAS in firefighting foams since the 1980’s.  I consumed contaminated oysters, crabs, and fish until I tested the food and found them to be poisonous. Neither the federal government nor the state recognizes the human health crisis, while the seafood remains cleared for consumption. Although I am not claiming direct causation, I have had two heart attacks, bypass surgery, and five arterial stents implanted. There is a strong correlation between PFAS in the blood and arterial disease.

The health impact of PFAS

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has emphasized that PFAS can bioaccumulate in fish at factors up to 4,000 times the concentration of PFOS in the water, meaning even relatively low PFAS concentrations in water can translate into extremely dangerous levels in fish tissue over time. Levels of PFOS exceeding 42,000 parts per trillion may translate to fish containing tens of millions parts per trillion in their fillet.

The U.K. has focused heavily on PFAS in drinking water, yet fish can bioaccumulate these chemicals to extraordinary levels. A flounder sampled from the River Thames at Woolwich reportedly contained about 52,100 ppt of PFOS in its tissue — hundreds of times higher than the concentrations regulators tolerate in drinking water.

Although the invertebrates and small fish in Gallos Stream are not directly consumed by humans, they may be consumed by larger fish further downstream. The entire food chain is poisoned.  The other PFAS compounds found in Gallos Stream may also bioaccumulate in living creatures, although not at the same level of PFOS.

Health agencies associate PFAS exposure with increased cholesterol, reduced vaccine response, liver-enzyme changes, pregnancy-induced hypertension, lower birth weight, kidney and testicular cancer, and thyroid disease. ‍‍ ‍

.

UK approach to PFAS is like playing whack a mole. There are more than 40,000 varieties of PFAS.

The UK Health Security Agency acknowledges links between certain PFAS exposures and cancers — particularly kidney and testicular cancers — yet stops short of describing PFAS as a carcinogenic chemical class. Instead, regulators continue to evaluate compounds individually, despite the reality that humans are exposed to complex mixtures of thousands of persistent fluorinated chemicals simultaneously. Critics argue this compound-by-compound approach understates the risks posed by widespread environmental contamination and resembles a regulatory game of whack-a-mole, where one compound is restricted only after years of study while countless related compounds remain in commerce and continue accumulating in the environment.

The contrast with California is striking. Under California’s Proposition 65 framework, both Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) are formally listed as chemicals known to cause cancer.

Once firefighting foams enter the environment, they become embedded throughout the environment. Fish and livestock can bioaccumulate PFAS. Crops irrigated with contaminated water may absorb certain compounds. Dust generated from contaminated soils or dried sediments may carry PFAS particles into homes and our lungs.

PFAS cling to sediments and coat the banks of streams and rivers. As water levels  fall, the contaminated banks are exposed, dry out, and become a source of airborne dust that settles in our lungs and in our homes as dust. 

In 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control conducted a study of dust in homes adjacent to Shepherd Field Air National Guard Base, West Virginia, a base with many years of fire training an AFFF use.

One home had dust containing the following concentrations of PFAS:

PFHxS        16,400,000
PFOS          13,900,000
PFOA            3,430,000

Levels of blood were found to correlate with the levels in the dust. This is likely the number one pathway of PFAS ingestion for young children, especially in areas of prolonged use of the carcinogenic foams.

We must treat heavily impacted areas with caution. In such settings, minimizing dust is key: damp cleaning methods (like wet mopping) are preferable to dry sweeping, and vacuuming should ideally be done with sealed systems. Changing vacuum cleaner bags is an occupational hazard.

All of this is swirling around while the conversation in the UK remains fixated on the drinking water which seems to be within regulatory standards, according to municipal water providers.  In the UK water companies must report and act if PFAS exceed 100 ppt total. London authorities report no exceedances in treated drinking water supplies at that level.  

Now, see this chart that compares various PFAS compounds left behind by the US Air Force in surface water at Upper Heyford, compared to the PFAS compounds left behind in dust by the US Air Force in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Notice the 3M fingerprint characterized by high concentrations of PFOS and PFHxS. Because Shepherd Field is an active base, PFHxS levels exceed PFOS concentrations.

These 48 PFAS Compounds are Subjected to UK Water Company Monitoring Thresholds.  Together, their total cannot exceed 100 ppt.

We don’t know the concentrations of PFAS in English fish, milk and eggs. Concentrations in the tens of thousands of parts per trillion have been documented around the world. Despite a vast global body of scientific evidence on PFAS persistence, toxicity, and bioaccumulation, the UK continues to prioritize casual monitoring and future evidence gathering over immediate regulatory controls.  

Conclusion

Independent testing commissioned by the Gallos Brook community group near former RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire revealed some of the highest publicly reported PFAS concentrations ever documented in surface water associated with a military site. The stream contained approximately 42,000 ppt total PFAS, including 27,823 ppt of PFOS alone, a contamination profile strongly associated with decades of U.S. Air Force aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) use at the base’s fire training area.

The chemistry includes both terminal PFAS compounds and precursor compounds still degrading into new generations of persistent contaminants, suggesting not a static “legacy” spill, but a massive aging reservoir of PFAS continuing to migrate through groundwater and seep into Gallos Brook decades after firefighting operations ceased.

This report argues that RAF Upper Heyford reflects a broader international failure to confront the long-term consequences of military PFAS contamination. While British regulators focus on drinking water thresholds, the contamination has already moved through sediments, fish, dust, wastewater systems, air, and the food chain. The report criticizes both the fragmented U.K. regulatory system and the slow-moving U.S. military cleanup framework under CERCLA, arguing that governments still lack a credible large-scale strategy for removing PFAS once they disperse through complex ecosystems.

There is a steep learning curve inherent to PFAS contamination, but it must be mastered quickly if England hopes to protect vulnerable populations from chemicals that migrate through complex ecosystems and threaten public health. 

By Pat Elder
May 20, 2026

The Maryland Department of the Environment briefly posted petrochemical and PFAS surface water samples showing an extraordinary pattern: 12 of 13 PFAS compounds in Piscataway Creek declined simultaneously within a single week.

By May 12, 2026, the document was publicly accessible on the agency’s website at:

Deleted MDE PFAS Monitoring PDF

Shortly afterward, the PDF vanished.

Fortunately, screenshots were captured before it disappeared.

This working page initially provided a link to the PDF under the section, Water Quality Monitoring, but that link has been deleted.  https://mde.maryland.gov/programs/land/OilControl/Pages/andrews.aspx

The deleted data raises serious questions about the validity of the PFAS results. The dataset showed an unusually uniform downward shift across nearly the entire suite of reported PFAS analytes. To the untrained eye, the figures might suggest that contamination levels in Piscataway Creek were rapidly improving. In reality, such synchronized movement across almost every compound over a single week would be extraordinarily unusual under real-world environmental conditions. Overall, the analytes declined by roughly 11 percent on average during the sampling interval, as shown in the chart below.

‍ Using a simple statistical model known as a binomial sign test, and assuming each analyte in the now-deleted database had an equal chance of either increasing or decreasing between sampling events, the probability of observing declines in 12 out of 13 analytes is approximately 0.17 percent, or about 1 chance in 585.

‍Sure, this type of calculation treats each analyte as an independent variable, which is not entirely realistic because many PFAS compounds are environmentally correlated and often rise or fall  due to fluctuating contamination sources, groundwater movement, and streamflow changes. Even so, the near-uniform downward movement across the dataset remains statistically striking.‍ ‍

Moreover, the Piscataway Creek watershed experienced extended drought conditions with no recorded rainfall from April 1, 2026 through April 20, 2026. Under prolonged dry-weather conditions, streamflow increasingly reflects groundwater baseflow rather than surface runoff. In watersheds contaminated with PFAS, this can actually intensify contamination levels because heavily polluted groundwater faces less dilution from rainfall and surface water inputs. Severe PFAS contamination in groundwater beneath Joint Base Andrews has already been documented by the Department of Defense (DoD).‍ ‍

In 2021, The DoD reported severely contaminated groundwater at JB Andrews with concentrations of 435,000 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFOA and 33,000 ppt of PFOS. The DoD only released results on these two compounds and did not publicly release broader analyte data.  An examination of MDE’s 4/13/2026 surface-water data shows that PFOA and PFOS together accounted for just 38.4% of the total PFAS burden detected in Piscataway Creek. This percentage shrinks further as additional analytes are examined. PFOS and PFOA are dangerous, but so are many of the newer compounds that are largely ignored. PFOS and PFOA remain among the most studied and toxic PFAS compounds, but many of the newer fluorotelomer compounds, sulfonamides, and short-chain replacement chemicals are also persistent, mobile, and potentially hazardous, despite receiving far less regulatory and public attention.‍ ‍

Against that backdrop, the near-uniform decline across nearly every compound over a one-week period is extremely unusual, especially considering the drought conditions that would normally be expected to increase the influence of contaminated groundwater on creek chemistry.‍ ‍

The pattern becomes even more suspect when viewed against the broader concentration trend shown in the data. Total PFAS concentrations increased from a low of 2,782 ppt in the 2021 Military Poisons dataset to 3,792.5 ppt in the 2026 MDE data, suggesting that overall contamination in the creek has increased substantially over time rather than sharply declining within a matter of days.‍ ‍

Additional weeks of testing shown on the MDE table for April 20 and April 28 were labeled “pending.” The entries appeared under the heading “JBA,” suggesting that Joint Base Andrews was also expected to provide additional sampling results for the 13 compounds. The table structure shown above indicates that the sampling program was ongoing, and that further analytical data either existed or was anticipated at the time the document was publicly accessible.‍ ‍

The pending status is notable because environmental laboratories commonly complete PFAS analysis within a week or two. By contrast, the Air Force and broader Department of Defense PFAS reporting process has often moved far more slowly, with months and sometimes years passing between sample collection, laboratory analysis, and public release of results. That delay has become a recurring source of frustration for communities near contaminated military sites, particularly where elevated PFAS concentrations in groundwater, surface water, or fish tissue have already been documented from independent sources. ‍ ‍

The Air Force addresses PFAS contamination through the CERCLA process — the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act — the federal hazardous waste cleanup framework commonly known as “Superfund.” CERCLA was developed primarily to investigate and remediate traditional contaminants such as petroleum hydrocarbons, solvents, heavy metals, and industrial chemicals. Critics argue that the framework is poorly suited to PFAS, whose extreme persistence, mobility, and resistance to destruction distinguish them from many conventional pollutants.‍ ‍

As a result, PFAS investigations and “cleanup” efforts at military installations often move at a painstaking pace, with years frequently passing between preliminary assessments, site inspections, remedial investigations, and feasibility studies. Critics have compared the government’s reliance on the traditional CERCLA structure for PFAS remediation to “forcing a square peg through a circular hole,” arguing that the process was designed for contaminants that behave very differently in the environment than highly mobile and virtually indestructible fluorinated compounds.‍ ‍

The deleted document suggests that additional PFAS and petroleum-related data either existed or was expected imminently when the table was released.  Then the data disappeared.‍ ‍

Public confidence in environmental investigations depends on continuity and transparency of data access. When datasets appear briefly during a high-profile contamination event and later vanish from public view before follow-up results are posted, it fuels skepticism among nearby residents and environmental groups already concerned about pollution from the base.

‍Search engines stall ‍ ‍

By May 18, 2026, a Google search could no longer retrieve the Maryland Department of the Environment page associated with the Joint Base Andrews fuel release, even though the URL itself remained active:
MDE Joint Base Andrews Monitoring Page‍ ‍

The page was last publicly accessible on May 12, 2026, when screenshots were captured showing the now-deleted PFAS data and the link to the PDF document. The image here shows the Google search query and results page from May 18, 2026.‍ ‍

Let’s examine publicly available data of PFAS in Piscataway Creek, dating back to 2018. Results are in parts per trillion.  

Military Poisons reported on 28 compounds; MDE, 13; the Air Force, 3. 

Sources:

2018 JBA - Final Site Inspections Report of Fire Fighting Foam Usage at Joint Base Andrews Prince George’s County, Maryland May 2018 AFFF Area 7 Table 30 Former Here Berry Farm #ANDRW07-004-SW-0001 See the PDF here.

2021 Military Poisons - Maryland issues first fish advisory for PFAS, October 19, 2021 https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/maryland-issues-first-fish-advisory-for-pfas

2021 MDE - Table 5: PFASs measured in surface water (ng/l) MDE PFAS in Surface Waters and Fish Tissue in Piscataway Creek October, 2021https://mde.maryland.gov/PublicHealth/Documents/Pisctaway_PFAS_Study_Final.pdf

4/13/26, 4/20/26 MDE  -  The webpage and linked PFAS dataset that were publicly accessible until May 12 are no longer available online, aside from this article.

They are playing a shell game

The more robust dataset from Military Poisons in 2021 covered 28 PFAS compounds. It reflects a chronological layering of contamination from different generations of AFFF use at the base, combined with decades of environmental transformation occurring in soils, sediments, groundwater, and surface water. It is fascinating, but it is not stuff you learn when the U.S. government is only willing to divulge surface water results for 3 PFAS compounds and the state limits its results to 13 for the missing data. ‍ ‍

EPA Method 1633 is widely regarded as the modern gold-standard analytical method for PFAS testing in environmental media, including surface water, groundwater, sediment, soil, biosolids, and tissue. The method produces results for 40 PFAS analytes.

‍EPA 1633 provides results for ‍40 compounds
shown here.

Although the MDE uses EPA Method 1633, it reported just 13 compounds in its now missing 2026 data. The MDE’s reporting contains no disclaimer indicating that only 13 compounds were tested.

‍Letter from congressional Democrats
misses the mark

U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela D. Alsobrooks joined all seven of the state’s Democratic representatives in Congress in writing a letter to the Air Force on May 6, 2026 criticizing the Air Force over transparency. It comes off as a kind of boiler plate reaction to the contamination du jour. Congress no longer calls the shots, although they like to pretend otherwise. Congressional letter writing like this is a recurring institutional feature of faux U.S. environmental oversight over the DOD since the 1980s.

This letter strays from the standard fuel leak boilerplate, however, by mentioning the PFAS contamination.

Maryland’s officials wrote, “Legacy pollution from Joint Base Andrews has already resulted in PFAS contamination in Piscataway Creek and the surrounding area, and this fuel spill adds to existing environmental stressors affecting the watershed.”

This is a true statement, although more context is needed. The original PFAS releases at Joint Base Andrews may be “legacy” in origin, but the contamination itself is not a past-tense problem. PFAS compounds continue to migrate through groundwater and surface water into Piscataway Creek, where they persist in sediments and bioaccumulate in fish and other aquatic life. Unlike many conventional contaminants that gradually degrade over time, PFAS remains chemically stable and continues moving through groundwater, sediments, wastewater systems, surface water, and the food chain long after the original releases occurred. ‍ ‍

Referring to PFAS primarily as “legacy pollution” therefore, risks creating the impression that the contamination is historical rather than ongoing. Meanwhile, the Air Force continues to address PFAS contamination through the ill-suited and slow-moving CERCLA process. For more than a decade after PFAS investigations began at Joint Base Andrews, the installation remains in the study and assessment phase, while no credible large-scale strategy has been presented for removing PFAS from the environment once it has dispersed through an interconnected watershed and food web. Modern science doesn’t have an answer. This truth fails to resonate.‍ ‍

Boilerplate congressional spill responses are politically convenient because petroleum contamination is a familiar environmental crisis with recognizable remediation pathways. Fuel spills are dramatic, visible, and easier for the public to conceptualize. Oil sheens can be photographed. Vapors smell. Excavation and groundwater recovery systems can substantially reduce concentrations.‍ ‍

PFAS presents a profoundly different challenge because the carbon-fluorine bond is among the strongest in organic chemistry. These compounds do not meaningfully biodegrade under ordinary environmental conditions. Instead of breaking down, they migrate. In the case of Joint Base Andrews, the carcinogens poison the Potomac and Patuxent watersheds. ‍ ‍

Meanwhile, the public remains largely unaware of the magnitude of the problem. The contamination continues moving through the environment while agencies release sporadic, partial datasets, delayed reports, and carefully managed public statements that obscure the larger reality: military and industrial operations have released highly mobile, virtually indestructible toxic compounds — including substances linked to cancer, immune suppression, developmental harm, and other serious health effects — into major ecosystems without possessing a viable strategy for removing them once they spread.

Conclusion‍ ‍

PFAS contamination at Joint Base Andrews is not a simple a story about a military base or a missing PDF. It reflects an alarming and dangerous gap between what government institutions know about forever chemicals and what they are willing to communicate publicly. Federal, state, and military officials continue to present PFAS contamination as a problem that can eventually be managed through investigation, monitoring, and incremental remediation, while failing to fully communicate the far more troubling scientific reality. ‍

The military has effectively positioned itself above the law. The entire structure is inherently conflicted: the U.S. Air Force is both the polluter responsible for the contamination and the federal entity entrusted with determining the extent of the pollution, controlling the release of information to the public, and directing a cleanup process for chemicals that may not be realistically removable once they have dispersed through groundwater, sediments, surface waters, and the food chain. Meanwhile the public is subjected to a vicious propaganda campaign.

Joint Base Andrews says it is “dedicated to environmental stewardship by proactively cleaning up past contamination to restore natural resources while integrating sustainable design and pollution prevention into all mission operations. To ensure public accountability, the base maintains a sustained commitment to resolving complex cleanup actions through transparent, close collaboration with the regulatory community.” They get the final word.