Were Dangerous ‘Forever Chemicals’ Released in the Red Hill Fuel Spill? The US Navy Isn’t Saying
July 28, 2022
When fuel spilled from the Navy’s Red Hill facility in Hawaii and tainted the drinking water for thousands of military homes in Hawaii, it sickened families and forced thousands to evacuate. But did that fuel carry other harmful toxins into people’s homes in the form of so-called forever chemicals?
If it did, the Navy is not saying.
The Navy’s official report on the 2021 spill found that, after the fuel escaped, it sat in a fire suppression system line for months, the kind of line that typically contains chemicals used in firefighting foams.
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Some of those chemicals, dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not break down and formally known as PFAS, are a collection of nearly 9,000 compounds that have commercial and industrial use. But they also can accumulate in the body and have been linked to infertility, some types of cancer and birth defects.
During a House hearing July 19, Rep. Kaiali’i Kahele, D-Hawaii, asked a Navy official about the potential for contamination with per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, as a result of the fuel leak into the Navy’s water system at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
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