8 ms·

The U.S. military is poisoning Okinawa

258 points by VagueMag 4y ago

dontbenebby 4y ago
I've been to Okinawa, they have legitimate complaints about a variety of behaviors emanating from the base. Sadly, those complaints are often selectively boosted when it benefits others, rather than out of sincere concern for fellow man. (Sorry I walked into your booth and bummed a cigarette, if you can read this. That was rude.) PS: The site was failing to load, so I am including a Wayback link in case anyone else encounters a similar issue: https://web.archive.org/web/20221202225620/https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/the-us-military-is-poisoning-okinawa https://web.archive.org/web/20221202225620/https://www.milit...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
voxadam 4y ago
Isn't the U.S. military also poisoning the citizens of Puerto Rico?
- aperson_hello 4y ago
  It's basically poisoning anywhere where it has presence (see camp lejeune lawsuits for a recently litigated example)
- capableweb 4y ago
  Don't you mean the citizens of the United States? They might be residents of Puerto Rico, but according to law they are citizens of the US. > All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899, and prior to January 13, 1941, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, residing on January 13, 1941, in Puerto Rico or other territory over which the United States exercises rights of sovereignty and not citizens of the United States under any other Act, are declared to be citizens of the United States as of January 13, 1941. All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after January 13, 1941, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens of the United States at birth. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1402&num=0&edition=prelim https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim... Edit: Sorry, I realized now that "citizen" has two meanings, one of legal status and one meaning just "residing in". I'm assuming you meant the latter while I only knew of the first one before.
  - voxadam 4y ago
    I'm sorry, I should have phrased my comment more carefully. I never meant to insinuate that Puerto Ricans aren't United States citizens. I was only pointing out that the U.S. military has been poisoning Puerto Ricans by way of unregulated hazardous waste burns and the widespread use of depleted uranium during wargames for decades, generations.
- defrost 4y ago
  . . . and the residents near Pearl Harbour, Hawaii thanks to the Navy’s massive fuel tank facility sunk into the mountains there. On the up side it is finally being closed, on the down side it's been leaking for decades.
ThePhysicist 4y ago
Okinawa is roughly 100 km long and 10 km wide with a surface area of 1.200 km², so not sure I'd call it "tiny".
- newsclues 4y ago
  Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake is 651,739 acres. Military land use is large.
  - metaphor 4y ago
    To reference China Lake's land use as if it were anything remotely close to the median military installation is outright absurd and disingenuous at best.
    - newsclues 4y ago
      Fort Bragg is 163,000 acres. Military bases and ranges are big.
      - metaphor 4y ago
        ...which is atypically large even for the Army because of the sheer number of tenants it now supports after 2005 BRAC consolidation, including Pope AFB, and yet still relatively small land-wise compared to China Lake supporting ~10% the personnel. I'm not denying that military bases aren't large---although I'd be willing to argue that the land is used quite inefficiently---but trying to pass the Navy's single largest weapons test range, or the Army's consolidation of 3 bases into 1 as somehow representative of the median is absurd.
        stonogo 4y ago
        It's not atypically large, it's not even up to the mean army base size, which is 189,000 acres: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56231 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56231
        4y ago
ryaniscool 4y ago
It’s also a big problem in communities surrounding domestic USA bases. I live in a community with an Air Force base. They tested the groundwater after a cluster of cancer cases appeared in graduates of the local high school. The PFAS levels were off the charts
- dtech 4y ago
  What do military bases do specifically causing this contamination?
  - nonameiguess 4y ago
    No idea specifically with PFAS, but in general, military installations are used for military training, which has many of the same pollution properties of an actual war. Spent rounds, links, casings for missiles, rockets, tank rounds, exploded C4, spilled fuel and lubricants. A great deal of effort goes into cleaning up after exercises, but you're never going to get it all. This is at least part of the reason training areas tend to be fairly isolated and remote and ideally nowhere near the water source for a human population. But also why the military has a pretty consistent history of settlement awards for raising cancer rates in at least the families of the personnel themselves who have no choice but to live there.
  - sgtnoodle 4y ago
    I believe they routinely dump large quantities of PFAS based chemicals onto runways for whatever reason, then let it run down storm drains.
  - gpcr1949 4y ago
    I was wondering the same thing. I found this in a guardian article > The military’s firefighters use aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, which contains extremely high levels of PFAS, in training exercises and emergencies. Though AFFF is effective, it has led to widespread contamination around bases and airports, and Congress just mandated the military check for PFAS pollution at 700 facilities while earmarking $571m for cleanup, though observers say the cost will likely be much higher. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/06/military-bases-contaminating-water-supply-pfas https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/06/military-bas...
notlukesky 4y ago
The Okinawans vote against military bases are ignored: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Okinawan_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Okinawan_referendum
- pirate787 4y ago
  Your post is dishonest the vote was against a specific landfill project.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    That vote was about a specific project, there was an earlier more general one that is also discussed in the linked article. Or see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Okinawan_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Okinawan_referendum
  - ahelwer 4y ago
    A specific landfill project to... what? > The referendum asked whether voters approved or opposed the landfill work at Henoko Bay for the construction of a new United States Marine Corps base. Can you explain how this is dishonest?
  - Kukumber 4y ago
    dishonest? the US does know how to split communities, they weren't stupid when they chose Okinawa i'm pretty sure in the future Okinawa will be the Taiwan of Japan i'd bet all my savings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_people https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/abe-ignores-controversial-okinawa-referendum-on-us-base-move https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/abe-ignores-cont...
    - resoluteteeth 4y ago
      > the US does know how to split communities, they weren't stupid when they chose Okinawa > i'm pretty sure in the future Okinawa will be the Taiwan of Japan > i'd bet all my savings Let me get this straight. You think that the US occupied Okinawa until 1972 and then returned it to Japan, only to then decide to play 12 dimensional chess by intentionally antagonizing okinawans and making them hate the us by all the problems they've caused with their military presence, so that Okinawa will some day split from japan and... do what? Because they sure as hell aren't going to want to have anything to do with the US. Maybe they'll become a vassal state of China again like under the Ryukyu kingdom? I'm not sure that outcome would show that the US wasn't stupid.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
same here in Italy, especially in Sardinia
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  Which base is near Sardinia? (I believe you, I just want to read more.)
  - JZM8yKnRvGv 4y ago
    La Maddalena.
    - dontbenebby 4y ago
      Thanks, I'll look into it, but my member of Congress is useless, so forgive me if I don't send them an email based on what I find :-) Edit: I only found the island so far -- looks like they didn't renew the lease? That's on stripes, not Wikipedia, which only has an entry for the local area and says: >In 1943, during World War II, Benito Mussolini was briefly held prisoner here. What a wonderful piece of history, you're so blessed to live in a place that did such wonderful things -- sorry the US military may have literally shit it up. (For lack of better phrasing.) [1] https://www.stripes.com/news/la-maddalena-says-goodbye-to-base-after-35-year-u-s-navy-presence-on-sardinia-1.74043 https://www.stripes.com/news/la-maddalena-says-goodbye-to-ba...
Tepix 4y ago
I'm wondering if they are also poisoning the area around the German bases.
pirate787 4y ago
This is a PFAS issue more than a military issue. The people who manufactured PFAS and the regulators who approved the use of PFAS need to be held to account.
- Tepix 4y ago
  Not really. The dangers of PFAS have been known for quite a while. Most have stopped using it long ago.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    > Most have stopped using it long ago. This isn't really true.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    This is strange logic, if you know something is bad, but you approve it's use anyway, you're in the wrong.
  - Bender 4y ago
    I thought that too. There is a video by John Oliver talking about PFAS and the other hundred or so variants of these compounds. [1] There are other videos talking about how companies can still use these compounds because the EPA only outlawed about 3 of the 130 or so. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU [video]
- mlindner 4y ago
  PFAS is not a single chemical. It's an entire family of chemicals and eliminating them destroys a lot of modern society as they're used for literally everything. There's basically no way they're all getting banned. Some of the worst are getting banned, but that's it.
  - Eleison23 4y ago
- 4y ago
curiousgal 4y ago
It's interesting looking at the contrast between the comments on this thread and the one about Iran abolishing morality police. Other thread : "yeaaah it's an empty gesture" This thread: "yeaaah we know"
nomilk 4y ago
For anyone else who didn't have a clue what PFAS were, an Australian Department of Defence website gives a nice 101: https://defence.gov.au/Environment/pfas/pfas.asp https://defence.gov.au/Environment/pfas/pfas.asp Key points: > PFAS stands for per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances > Legacy firefighting foams containing perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as active ingredients were once used extensively worldwide and within Australia, including at Defence bases, due to their effectiveness in fighting liquid fuel fires. > In 2004 Defence commenced phasing out its use of legacy firefighting foam containing PFOS and PFOA as active ingredients and transitioned to a more environmentally safe product. > The release of PFAS into the environment has become a concern, because we’ve learned these chemicals can persist in humans, animals and the environment.
hornet301 4y ago
It's happening not only Okinawa but anywhere around the U.S. military bases in Japan. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20221124/k10013899691000.html https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20221124/k10013899691000.ht...
- dontbenebby 4y ago
  I heard a rumor the true source of the weirdness around Area 51 was if they admitted folks had been there, they'd be admitting they'd been exposed to certain chemicals rather than the weirdness around UFOs. (There are other places to test aircraft that Alex Jones won't wander into with a video camera.)
nonrandomstring 4y ago
What I find most disturbing is not the mistakes we make as humans, but the mental gymnastics we use to avoid actually dealing with problems. An article posted yesterday on the "Impotence of cleverness" (by Alexander Stern: I was very impressed by it) got me thinking about the curse intelligence really is. Many smart people I know are masters of self-deception, rationalisation, avoidance, whataboutism, oh-dearism... For each shameful act and horror we have quick clever answers, by appeal to "reasons"; process, policy, necessity, authority, security, tradition... and we use those to construct a tolerance of misbehaviour. We feel prouder of that tolerance, - a shield against hopelessness - and our ability to explain-away problems, than of our willingness to challenge them. If only people could apply this intellectual force to radical scepticism and freethinking needed to break out of destructive cycles.
alkonaut 4y ago
Every air field in the world that had fire drills in the last 50 years have PFAS in the surrounding environment. It’s extremely hard to clean out, although not impossible. Using certain plants to collect the PFAS from water, then harvesting and incinerating them has been shown to work. I’m assuming there is no current use of PFAS in these bases now. The economic responsibility for cleanup and compensation is of course with the US.
- blahblah1234567 4y ago
  Unfortunately, Incinerating sounds like a way to release PFAS or some sort of breakdown of them into other (perhaps similar or worse) chemicals, into the air. At which point, they will float and disperse and likely fall back onto/into the land or water. I imagine they're a colloid in water. And so perhaps they precipitate out of air (vapor?) and into land/water.
DoreenMichele 4y ago
Medical science has not figured out a way to rid these chemicals from our bodies... They can install municipal and private water filters. They can stop using nonstick pans and they can rid their homes of consumer items that contain the chemicals. From: https://www.epa.gov/pfas/meaningful-and-achievable-steps-you-can-take-reduce-your-risk https://www.epa.gov/pfas/meaningful-and-achievable-steps-you... If possible, consider using an alternate water source for drinking, preparing food, cooking, brushing teeth, preparing baby formula, and any other activity when your family might swallow water. Consider installing an in-home water treatment (e.g., filters) that are certified to lower the levels of PFAS in your water. We've poisoned our entire planet. These things are everywhere, which is in no way intended to minimize or dismiss the complaints of people in Okinawa. But there is no one who shouldn't be wondering how to reduce their exposure to these persistent chemicals known to negatively impact health and which current medical science doesn't know how to get out of us once they get into us.
tasuki 4y ago
The "snowflake"... how did it get there?
lizardactivist 4y ago
The article states that the US even denies it and interfers when the local government wants to investigate. Absolutely despicable, well on form for the US.
user3939382 4y ago
At least they’ll get clean water when they visit Hawai’i. Oh wait https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hawaii-water-navy-investigation-pearl-harbor_n_62be662fe4b00a9334e617ec https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hawaii-water-navy-investigati...

258 points by VagueMag 4y ago

I've been to Okinawa, they have legitimate complaints about a variety of behaviors emanating from the base. Sadly, those complaints are often selectively boosted when it benefits others, rather than out of sincere concern for fellow man. (Sorry I walked into your booth and bummed a cigarette, if you can read this. That was rude.) PS: The site was failing to load, so I am including a Wayback link in case anyone else encounters a similar issue: https://web.archive.org/web/20221202225620/https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/the-us-military-is-poisoning-okinawa https://web.archive.org/web/20221202225620/https://www.milit...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

voxadam 4y ago

Isn't the U.S. military also poisoning the citizens of Puerto Rico?

aperson_hello 4y ago
It's basically poisoning anywhere where it has presence (see camp lejeune lawsuits for a recently litigated example)
capableweb 4y ago
Don't you mean the citizens of the United States? They might be residents of Puerto Rico, but according to law they are citizens of the US. > All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899, and prior to January 13, 1941, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, residing on January 13, 1941, in Puerto Rico or other territory over which the United States exercises rights of sovereignty and not citizens of the United States under any other Act, are declared to be citizens of the United States as of January 13, 1941. All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after January 13, 1941, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens of the United States at birth. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1402&num=0&edition=prelim https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim... Edit: Sorry, I realized now that "citizen" has two meanings, one of legal status and one meaning just "residing in". I'm assuming you meant the latter while I only knew of the first one before.
- voxadam 4y ago
  I'm sorry, I should have phrased my comment more carefully. I never meant to insinuate that Puerto Ricans aren't United States citizens. I was only pointing out that the U.S. military has been poisoning Puerto Ricans by way of unregulated hazardous waste burns and the widespread use of depleted uranium during wargames for decades, generations.
defrost 4y ago
. . . and the residents near Pearl Harbour, Hawaii thanks to the Navy’s massive fuel tank facility sunk into the mountains there. On the up side it is finally being closed, on the down side it's been leaking for decades.

ThePhysicist 4y ago

Okinawa is roughly 100 km long and 10 km wide with a surface area of 1.200 km², so not sure I'd call it "tiny".

newsclues 4y ago
Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake is 651,739 acres. Military land use is large.
- metaphor 4y ago
  To reference China Lake's land use as if it were anything remotely close to the median military installation is outright absurd and disingenuous at best.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    Fort Bragg is 163,000 acres. Military bases and ranges are big.
    - metaphor 4y ago
      ...which is atypically large even for the Army because of the sheer number of tenants it now supports after 2005 BRAC consolidation, including Pope AFB, and yet still relatively small land-wise compared to China Lake supporting ~10% the personnel. I'm not denying that military bases aren't large---although I'd be willing to argue that the land is used quite inefficiently---but trying to pass the Navy's single largest weapons test range, or the Army's consolidation of 3 bases into 1 as somehow representative of the median is absurd.
      - stonogo 4y ago
        It's not atypically large, it's not even up to the mean army base size, which is 189,000 acres: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56231 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56231
      - 4y ago

ryaniscool 4y ago

It’s also a big problem in communities surrounding domestic USA bases. I live in a community with an Air Force base. They tested the groundwater after a cluster of cancer cases appeared in graduates of the local high school. The PFAS levels were off the charts

dtech 4y ago
What do military bases do specifically causing this contamination?
- nonameiguess 4y ago
  No idea specifically with PFAS, but in general, military installations are used for military training, which has many of the same pollution properties of an actual war. Spent rounds, links, casings for missiles, rockets, tank rounds, exploded C4, spilled fuel and lubricants. A great deal of effort goes into cleaning up after exercises, but you're never going to get it all. This is at least part of the reason training areas tend to be fairly isolated and remote and ideally nowhere near the water source for a human population. But also why the military has a pretty consistent history of settlement awards for raising cancer rates in at least the families of the personnel themselves who have no choice but to live there.
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  I believe they routinely dump large quantities of PFAS based chemicals onto runways for whatever reason, then let it run down storm drains.
- gpcr1949 4y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. I found this in a guardian article > The military’s firefighters use aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, which contains extremely high levels of PFAS, in training exercises and emergencies. Though AFFF is effective, it has led to widespread contamination around bases and airports, and Congress just mandated the military check for PFAS pollution at 700 facilities while earmarking $571m for cleanup, though observers say the cost will likely be much higher. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/06/military-bases-contaminating-water-supply-pfas https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/06/military-bas...

notlukesky 4y ago

The Okinawans vote against military bases are ignored: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Okinawan_referendum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Okinawan_referendum

pirate787 4y ago
Your post is dishonest the vote was against a specific landfill project.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  That vote was about a specific project, there was an earlier more general one that is also discussed in the linked article. Or see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Okinawan_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Okinawan_referendum
- ahelwer 4y ago
  A specific landfill project to... what? > The referendum asked whether voters approved or opposed the landfill work at Henoko Bay for the construction of a new United States Marine Corps base. Can you explain how this is dishonest?
- Kukumber 4y ago
  dishonest? the US does know how to split communities, they weren't stupid when they chose Okinawa i'm pretty sure in the future Okinawa will be the Taiwan of Japan i'd bet all my savings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_people https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/abe-ignores-controversial-okinawa-referendum-on-us-base-move https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/abe-ignores-cont...
  - resoluteteeth 4y ago
    > the US does know how to split communities, they weren't stupid when they chose Okinawa > i'm pretty sure in the future Okinawa will be the Taiwan of Japan > i'd bet all my savings Let me get this straight. You think that the US occupied Okinawa until 1972 and then returned it to Japan, only to then decide to play 12 dimensional chess by intentionally antagonizing okinawans and making them hate the us by all the problems they've caused with their military presence, so that Okinawa will some day split from japan and... do what? Because they sure as hell aren't going to want to have anything to do with the US. Maybe they'll become a vassal state of China again like under the Ryukyu kingdom? I'm not sure that outcome would show that the US wasn't stupid.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

same here in Italy, especially in Sardinia

dontbenebby 4y ago
Which base is near Sardinia? (I believe you, I just want to read more.)
- JZM8yKnRvGv 4y ago
  La Maddalena.
  - dontbenebby 4y ago
    Thanks, I'll look into it, but my member of Congress is useless, so forgive me if I don't send them an email based on what I find :-) Edit: I only found the island so far -- looks like they didn't renew the lease? That's on stripes, not Wikipedia, which only has an entry for the local area and says: >In 1943, during World War II, Benito Mussolini was briefly held prisoner here. What a wonderful piece of history, you're so blessed to live in a place that did such wonderful things -- sorry the US military may have literally shit it up. (For lack of better phrasing.) [1] https://www.stripes.com/news/la-maddalena-says-goodbye-to-base-after-35-year-u-s-navy-presence-on-sardinia-1.74043 https://www.stripes.com/news/la-maddalena-says-goodbye-to-ba...

Tepix 4y ago

I'm wondering if they are also poisoning the area around the German bases.

pirate787 4y ago

This is a PFAS issue more than a military issue. The people who manufactured PFAS and the regulators who approved the use of PFAS need to be held to account.

Tepix 4y ago
Not really. The dangers of PFAS have been known for quite a while. Most have stopped using it long ago.
- mlindner 4y ago
  > Most have stopped using it long ago. This isn't really true.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  This is strange logic, if you know something is bad, but you approve it's use anyway, you're in the wrong.
- Bender 4y ago
  I thought that too. There is a video by John Oliver talking about PFAS and the other hundred or so variants of these compounds. [1] There are other videos talking about how companies can still use these compounds because the EPA only outlawed about 3 of the 130 or so. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU [video]
mlindner 4y ago
PFAS is not a single chemical. It's an entire family of chemicals and eliminating them destroys a lot of modern society as they're used for literally everything. There's basically no way they're all getting banned. Some of the worst are getting banned, but that's it.
- Eleison23 4y ago
4y ago

curiousgal 4y ago

It's interesting looking at the contrast between the comments on this thread and the one about Iran abolishing morality police. Other thread : "yeaaah it's an empty gesture" This thread: "yeaaah we know"

nomilk 4y ago

For anyone else who didn't have a clue what PFAS were, an Australian Department of Defence website gives a nice 101: https://defence.gov.au/Environment/pfas/pfas.asp https://defence.gov.au/Environment/pfas/pfas.asp Key points: > PFAS stands for per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances > Legacy firefighting foams containing perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as active ingredients were once used extensively worldwide and within Australia, including at Defence bases, due to their effectiveness in fighting liquid fuel fires. > In 2004 Defence commenced phasing out its use of legacy firefighting foam containing PFOS and PFOA as active ingredients and transitioned to a more environmentally safe product. > The release of PFAS into the environment has become a concern, because we’ve learned these chemicals can persist in humans, animals and the environment.

hornet301 4y ago

It's happening not only Okinawa but anywhere around the U.S. military bases in Japan. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20221124/k10013899691000.html https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20221124/k10013899691000.ht...

dontbenebby 4y ago
I heard a rumor the true source of the weirdness around Area 51 was if they admitted folks had been there, they'd be admitting they'd been exposed to certain chemicals rather than the weirdness around UFOs. (There are other places to test aircraft that Alex Jones won't wander into with a video camera.)

nonrandomstring 4y ago

What I find most disturbing is not the mistakes we make as humans, but the mental gymnastics we use to avoid actually dealing with problems. An article posted yesterday on the "Impotence of cleverness" (by Alexander Stern: I was very impressed by it) got me thinking about the curse intelligence really is. Many smart people I know are masters of self-deception, rationalisation, avoidance, whataboutism, oh-dearism... For each shameful act and horror we have quick clever answers, by appeal to "reasons"; process, policy, necessity, authority, security, tradition... and we use those to construct a tolerance of misbehaviour. We feel prouder of that tolerance, - a shield against hopelessness - and our ability to explain-away problems, than of our willingness to challenge them. If only people could apply this intellectual force to radical scepticism and freethinking needed to break out of destructive cycles.

alkonaut 4y ago

Every air field in the world that had fire drills in the last 50 years have PFAS in the surrounding environment. It’s extremely hard to clean out, although not impossible. Using certain plants to collect the PFAS from water, then harvesting and incinerating them has been shown to work. I’m assuming there is no current use of PFAS in these bases now. The economic responsibility for cleanup and compensation is of course with the US.

blahblah1234567 4y ago
Unfortunately, Incinerating sounds like a way to release PFAS or some sort of breakdown of them into other (perhaps similar or worse) chemicals, into the air. At which point, they will float and disperse and likely fall back onto/into the land or water. I imagine they're a colloid in water. And so perhaps they precipitate out of air (vapor?) and into land/water.

DoreenMichele 4y ago

Medical science has not figured out a way to rid these chemicals from our bodies... They can install municipal and private water filters. They can stop using nonstick pans and they can rid their homes of consumer items that contain the chemicals. From: https://www.epa.gov/pfas/meaningful-and-achievable-steps-you-can-take-reduce-your-risk https://www.epa.gov/pfas/meaningful-and-achievable-steps-you... If possible, consider using an alternate water source for drinking, preparing food, cooking, brushing teeth, preparing baby formula, and any other activity when your family might swallow water. Consider installing an in-home water treatment (e.g., filters) that are certified to lower the levels of PFAS in your water. We've poisoned our entire planet. These things are everywhere, which is in no way intended to minimize or dismiss the complaints of people in Okinawa. But there is no one who shouldn't be wondering how to reduce their exposure to these persistent chemicals known to negatively impact health and which current medical science doesn't know how to get out of us once they get into us.

tasuki 4y ago

The "snowflake"... how did it get there?

lizardactivist 4y ago

The article states that the US even denies it and interfers when the local government wants to investigate. Absolutely despicable, well on form for the US.

user3939382 4y ago

At least they’ll get clean water when they visit Hawai’i. Oh wait https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hawaii-water-navy-investigation-pearl-harbor_n_62be662fe4b00a9334e617ec https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hawaii-water-navy-investigati...