Australian defence force warned about toxic firefighting foam 30 years ago

Extract from The Guardian

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Australian defence force

Four Corners unearths 1987 report suggesting defence knew of contamination concerns earlier than thought

RAAF firefighters at Williamtown airbase in 2011. The base is one of dozens of sites contaminated by the use of toxic firefighting foam. Photograph: Corporal Raymond Vance/Australian Defence Force

Christopher Knaus

Monday 9 October 2017 21.30 AEDT

Defence was warned 30 years ago that the chemicals in its firefighting foam should be handled as a toxic waste, according to a new report.
The warning, reportedly made to the air force by a consultant in 1987, suggests defence may have had earlier knowledge of the dangers of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) than previously thought.
The ABC’s Four Corners program on Monday night uncovered new evidence in the long-running PFAS contamination scandal.
PFAS was used in firefighting foam at defence bases, airports, and fire stations since the 1980s, and has now been found to have leached into groundwater, waterways, and soil at dozens of sites across the country.

Studies in the US have shown a probable link between PFAS and cancer, although the Australian government maintains there is no consistent evidence.

The defence department is facing two class actions from residents in Williamtown, New South Wales, and Oakey in Queensland. Residents in both towns allege the contamination has destroyed their livelihoods, sent property prices crashing, and caused health problems.
Critics say the response to the PFAS scandal has exposed significant failings in Australia’s regulatory regime, which caused significant delays in phasing out the chemicals’ use and warning residents of contamination.
Despite clear warnings from the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2000, defence only began a slow phase out of the most toxic foam, 3M Lightwater, in 2004, and instead switched to a less concentrated foam, Ansulite, which is still used.
Earlier this year, Guardian Australia reported that defence knew as early as 1991 that firefighting and fire training at the Oakey base had “the potential to cause contamination of the environment”.
But the ABC’s report on Monday cited a consultant’s report relating to a different base from four years earlier, which said the foam “must be prevented from entering stormwater systems, ponds and groundwater except in an emergency”.
The report said the foam should be handled as a “toxic waste” and warned of a risk of possible groundwater contamination, according to the ABC.
The deputy secretary of the Department of Defence, Steve Grzeskowiak, conceded past practices in handling the foam were “not good” in the 1980s and 1990s.
“Without knowing the detail of what was done it’s difficult for me to say, but there’s no doubt about it that the way we used these products in the firefighting airfields in defence back in the 80s and 90s was not as good as it should have been,” he told the ABC.

Residents of Williamtown, near Newcastle, have repeatedly expressed their anger at defence’s secrecy and over the delays in notifying the community of contamination.
The defence department says it first detected contamination in 2011, although prior investigations had detected a contamination risk in 2007. Residents were not told until 2015.
Defence also insisted the NSW Environment Protection Authority keep information about the contamination confidential, a request which prompted concern within the regulator.
EPA officials expressed the view that “if there is a risk, it may be better for early public communication”, according to an independent review of their response.
Grzeskowiak conceded Williamtown residents ought to have been told earlier.

“I think today with the knowledge that we have, we’d have done things differently. I think of that there’s no doubt. I think if we had our time again, should we have told the community back in 2012, from the middle of 2012, we probably should,” he told the ABC.
The US was clear in its warnings to the Australian government about PFAS in 2000. Its letter said the chemicals risked “severe, long-term consequences” to human health and the environment.
“It appears to combine persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity properties to an extraordinary degree,” the US EPA wrote on 16 May 2000 to Australian officials.

Additional warnings from multinational bodies in the early 2000s prompted action by Australia’s federal chemicals regulator, the national industrial chemicals notification and assessment scheme (Nicnas).
It issued a notification in 2003 to state regulators telling them to limit the use of PFAS to essential purposes and where no alternative was available. The chemicals should not be used for fire training, Nicnas said.
But the warnings went unheeded in some states. In NSW, it took eight years for the NSW EPA to notify the state’s rural fire service. Even then, the issue was not followed up on until late 2015, according to a review by Macquarie University professor Mark Taylor.
This year, concerns about contamination in Katherine, in the Northern Territory, prompted calls for the federal government to fund blood-testing for local residents.
Drinking water in the town has been contaminated, and PFAS has even made its way into the local pool.
The federal government has been shipping in drinking water to the town, and has ordered a new water-treatment facility to treat contaminated bore water, which combines with river water to create the town’s drinking supply.