[CPEO-MEF] PFCs: "Air Force defends use of firefighting foam, denies October spill" at Peterson Air Force Base (CO)

[Lenny Siegel]

Air Force defends use of firefighting foam, denies October spill

By Tom Roeder
Colorado Springs Gazette
November 2, 2016

A top Air Force official strongly defended the service's use of toxic firefighting foam Wednesday, saying airmen never "knowingly and intentionally" put the community at risk, despite Air Force studies dating to the 1970s that showed chemicals like those in the foam were harmful to laboratory animals.

Mark A. Correll, a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force overseeing environmental concerns, called the Air Force's studies "data points" and argued the Air Force had no reason to change its practices with the foam until the Environmental Protection Agency issued a health warning about perfluorinated compounds in the foam in May.

"We rely on agencies that do this for a living to give us answers," Correll said.

During a news conference, the Air Force also reversed course on its own report of a 150,000-gallon release of firefighting foam-tainted water from a storage tank at Peterson Air Force Base, claiming miscommunication between engineers there made a 20,000 gallon evaporation look like a far larger discharge into a Colorado Springs Utilities sewer line.

...

For the entire article, see
http://gazette.com/air-force-reverses-course-on-big-spill-of-firefighting-foam-contaminated-water/article/1589235

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel at cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org