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Milwaukee Area Water Poisoned by Military PFAS Forever Chemicals

original article Laura Schulte

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1 Sep 2021

‘Forever chemicals’ from a military installation at Mitchell Airport are a risk to nearby drinking wells, Lake Michigan, a report says

“Despite testing that found “forever chemicals” at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport two years ago, the Department of Defense has yet to move forward with a plan to address the contamination, putting nearby residents with private drinking wells at risk.

The Department of Defense was notified by the state Department of Natural Resources that it was the responsible party for contamination from PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — in ground and surface water near the airport in 2019, but no action has yet been taken, according to a new report by the Environmental Working Group.

The environmental advocacy group looked at publicly available data related to PFAS testing at DOD sites across the Great Lakes region and found that several sites, including Mitchell Airport, could be contaminating not only groundwater but the lakes that give the area its name.

Some of the highest levels of the chemicals were found in private drinking wells along the borders of the Milwaukee airport, said Jared Hayes, a policy analyst with the Environmental Working Group. And because no aggressive action has been taken since the discovery of the compounds, some residents in the area may not even know they’re at risk.

“People with private wells on the Great Lakes near these bases may not even know they’re being exposed to these chemicals,” he said.

Contaminated water is also flowing into Lake Michigan from the airport, where it is likely to accumulate in the fish population.

“(PFAS) have been getting into the Great Lakes, it has been getting into the fish population,” Hayes said. “And that has an impact on recreation and commercial industries.”

Lake Michigan also serves as a drinking water source for both Milwaukee and Chicago, meaning millions of people rely on the lake. Three other DOD sites along Lake Michigan are suspected to have released PFAS as well: the Great Lakes Naval Service Training Command and Fort Sheridan in Illinois and the Gary Army Aviation Support Facility in Indiana.

The Duluth International Airport was cited as the only DOD site along Lake Superior to have a confirmed military PFAS discharge.

The chemicals are most likely from the use of firefighting foam used to put out high-temperature fires like those that would occur when jet fuel ignites.

“They’ve been using this stuff for decades on various installations for gasoline fires or training exercises,” Hayes said. “Then it gets sprayed off the tarmac, and it goes into streams and builds up and builds up.”

Mr. Barry Williams, a civilian fire fighter with the 436th Civil Engineer Squadron, Fire Department, sprays water on fire suppression foam in hangar 706 while other firefighters watch on Sept. 16, 2013 at Dover Air Force Base, Del. Personnel from the Dover Fire Department responded to the inadvertent release of fire suppression foam and then worked to dissipate the foam using water sprayed from a ladder truck so clean-up efforts could begin. (U.S. Air Force photo/Greg L. Davis)

Chemicals first linked to airport in 2019

“Forever chemicals” were first detected at Milwaukee’s airport in 2019, when DNR testing showed contaminated stormwater flowing to Wilson Park Creek, which drains into the Kinnickinnic River and eventually the lake and Oak Creek, which empties directly into the lake.

The department ordered that the airport needed to determine the source of the contamination, prevent future discharges and develop a cleanup plan. At the time, levels were not high enough to be considered a public health concern, but the department wanted the water utility to monitor levels.

Included in the testing results in 2019 were about six compounds, including PFOA and PFOS, two of the most researched PFAS chemicals.

Though recommendations at the time called for wastewater utilities to start measuring for PFAS, no such rules have yet been instituted, because the utilities are not the source of chemicals but merely a receiver as the chemicals are washed down drains across the state.

Milwaukee isn’t the only city to face a PFAS contamination stemming from its airport. In Madison, contamination stemming from the Dane County Regional Airport — where the 115th Fighter Wing of the Wisconsin Air National Guard is stationed — has been linked to high levels of PFAS in a nearby lake and some nearby wells.

On French Island, which is home to the La Crosse Regional Airport on one side and the Town of Campbell on the other, over a thousand people are receiving bottled water after PFAS were found in private drinking water across the island. Research into the airport’s past has shown that ongoing testing of PFAS-containing firefighting foam and foam used to put out blazes caused by plane crashes are likely responsible for most of the contamination.

PFAS are a family of man-made chemicals used for their water- and stain-resistant qualities in products like clothing and carpet, nonstick cookware, packaging and firefighting foam. The family includes 5,000 compounds, which are persistent, remaining both in the environment and the human body over time.

Ideas to Help Afghans/Refugees Here in Wisconsin and Beyond

Wisconsin Department of Children and Families

“Refugees arrive with little beyond the clothes they are wearing and often are very unfamiliar with American ways of life. You can make a real difference by offering your time, skills and gifts to help welcome new Wisconsin residents from a refugee background. ”

How you can help refugees from Afghanistan

Refugee Programs

Online Resource Center for Afghan Refugees and SIVs

No One Left Behind is the only nationwide nonprofit committed to ensuring that America keeps its promise to our allies and their families

“If you are interested in volunteering to assist with wellness activities for children and their families or know an attorney who is interested in providing pro bono legal assistance, please contact… Lisha Loo-Morgan at [email protected], call (732) 642-9031

Afghan Refugees Humanitarian Crisis

for more information try About Face: Veterans Against the War or Veterans for Peace

Uninvited: Sen. Baldwin Denies Access to Constituents Who Oppose the War Machine

Tammy Baldwin Denies Access to Fundraiser Ticketholders Who Have Been Vocal Against the F-35 Bomber Deployment in Madison
By Amy Anderson, Aug 26, 2021

[pictures & links – bottom]
The latest battle to stop the planned F-35 bomber deployment to Air National Guard’s Truax Field in Madison took place at the entrance to Senator Tammy Baldwin’s annual summer BBQ fundraiser last Sunday, August 22^nd. Held at the picturesque Fields Reserve reception barn on a wooded hill near Lake Kegonsa, some residents came to express their alarm and dismay about the harm to the Madison community that they say the stationing of these jets would bring.

However, several constituents who had paid for entry to the $50-$1000 fundraiser received email cancellations and refunds of their donations from the event staff just one day prior to the event. The seven constituents were all members of Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin, a group calling for the halt of F-35s coming to Madison.

These seven individuals came despite the cancellation but were not allowed in as eight security officers and three Dane County sheriff deputies guarded the driveway. So instead they joined the picket organized by the No F35 Action Faction, who brought 35 local residents to picket and pass out flyers. Donors attending the event waited in lines in their cars, sometimes for 15 minutes or longer while a single event staff person checked tickets against a list of names to determine if each passenger was on the approved list for entry.

One of the most vocal members denied entry was Tom Berman, a northside
homeowner for 37 years who has also operated a small business there for 32 years.
He expressed desperation that his beloved home and place of business will be
officially condemned as being within an “uninhabitable” zone once the F-35 jets
arrive and the frequent practice drills begin.

He quotes the Air Force’s Environmental Impact Statement that there are already 6222 sorties planned each year for the F-35s once they arrive in 2023. This is a 27% rise over current flights from Truax Field. He explained that the noise levels from takeoff of F-35s are traumatic to humans and more than four times louder than the F-16s which currently regularly practice over Madison’s east and northside.

David Williams from the No F35 Action Faction called the blacklisting of Madison residents from the event a sad but unsurprising disappointment in light of the Senator’s continued stonewalling against the growing voices from her own hometown against this deployment. “Our original picket slogan was We should not have to pay to be heard. But now we realize that even for those purchasing a ticket, we still don’t get to be heard.”

Mr. Berman reports that after the event was over Senator Baldwin did stop and let him give her his letter on her way out, saying she would have one of her staff get back to him.

The Safe Skies and Action Faction groups have been working for over two years to raise public awareness and to pressure Senator Baldwin, who has been a supporter of deploying F-35s in Madison rather than a sparsely populated area where it would be easier to mitigate the impacts.

Objections to the F-35 deployment include:

regular traumatic and unhealthy noise levels for Madison residents
the expense and hardship of relocating multiple Madison residents
decrease in property values for east and northside residents
impacts will affect low-income and minority populations the most
increase of PFAS “forever” chemicals commonly used in firefighting drills at Truax which have already contaminated local waterways and many municipal wells
the well-documented dubiety of the F-35s as a military investment
the danger of bringing these nuclear-capable planes to Madison
the escalation of out-of-control military spending and endless war

Find Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin and sign up for updates.

Like No F-35s Action Faction on Facebook, and they welcome people to join the cause.

America’s Afghan War: A Defeat Foretold? by Adam Nossiter

August 21, 2021 | Adam Nossiter | New York Times

Adam Nossiter is the Kabul bureau chief for the NY Times.

original link …

America’s Afghan War: A Defeat Foretold? by Adam Nossiter

Intercept: Top Defense [War Crime] Profits

Open Secrets: Last Afghan Contracts

“It was 8 a.m. and the sleepy Afghan sergeant stood at what he called the front line, one month before the city of Kunduz fell to the Taliban. An unspoken agreement protected both sides. There would be no shooting.

That was the nature of the strange war the Afghans just fought, and lost, with the Taliban.

President Biden and his advisers say the Afghan military’s total collapse proved its unworthiness, vindicating the American pullout. But the extraordinary melting away of government and army, and the bloodless transition in most places so far, point to something more fundamental.

The war the Americans thought they were fighting against the Taliban was not the war their Afghan allies were fighting. That made the American war, like other such neocolonialist adventures, most likely doomed from the start.

Recent history shows it is foolish for Western powers to fight wars in other people’s lands, despite the temptations. Homegrown insurgencies, though seemingly outmatched in money, technology, arms, air power and the rest, are often better motivated, have a constant stream of new recruits, and often draw sustenance from just over the border.

Outside powers are fighting one war as visitors — occupiers — and their erstwhile allies who actually live there, something entirely different. In Afghanistan, it was not good versus evil, as the Americans saw it, but neighbor against neighbor.

When it comes to guerrilla war, Mao once described the relationship that should exist between a people and troops. “The former may be likened to water,” he wrote, “the latter to the fish who inhabit it.”

And when it came to Afghanistan, the Americans were a fish out of water. Just as the Russians had been in the 1980s. Just as the Americans were in Vietnam in the 1960s. And as the French were in Algeria in the 1950s. And the Portuguese during their futile attempts to keep their African colonies in the ’60s and ’70s. And the Israelis during their occupation of southern Lebanon in the ’80s.

Each time the intervening power in all these places announced that the homegrown insurgency had been definitively beaten, or that a corner had been turned, smoldering embers led to new conflagrations.

The Americans thought they had defeated the Taliban by the end of 2001. They were no longer a concern. But the result was actually far more ambiguous.

“Most had essentially melted away, and we weren’t sure where they’d gone,” wrote Brig. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, as quoted by the historian Carter Malkasian in a new book, “The American War in Afghanistan.”

In fact, the Taliban were never actually beaten. Many had been killed by the Americans, but the rest simply faded into the mountains and villages, or across the border into Pakistan, which has succored the movement since its inception.

By 2006, they had reconstituted sufficiently to launch a major offensive. The end of the story played out in the grim and foreordained American humiliation that unfolded over the past week — the consecration of the U.S. military loss.

“In the long run all colonial wars are lost,” the historian of Portugal’s misadventures in Africa, Patrick Chabal, wrote 20 years ago, just as the Americans were becoming fatally embroiled in Afghanistan.

The superpower’s two-decade entanglement and ultimate defeat was all the more surprising in that the America of the decades preceding the millennium had been suffused with talk of the supposed “lessons” of Vietnam.

The dominant one was enunciated by the former majority leader of the Senate, Mike Mansfield, in the late 1970s: “The cost was 55,000 dead, 303,000 wounded, $150 billion,” Mansfield told a radio interviewer. “It was unnecessary, uncalled-for, it wasn’t tied to our security or a vital interest. It was just a misadventure in a part of the world which we should have kept our nose out of.”

Long before, at the very beginning of the “misadventure,” in 1961, President John F. Kennedy had been warned off Vietnam by no less an authority than Charles de Gaulle. “I predict that you will sink step by step into a bottomless military and political quagmire, however much you spend in men and money,” de Gaulle, the French president, later recalled telling Kennedy.

The American ignored him. In words that foreshadowed both the Vietnam and Afghan debacles, de Gaulle warned Kennedy: “Even if you find local leaders who in their own interests are prepared to obey you, the people will not agree to it, and indeed do not want you.”