[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: Aquidneck Island Navy Base (RI)

[Lenny Siegel]

PFAS Contamination from Aquidneck Island Navy Base Worries Neighbors 


By BRIAN P. D. HANNON
ecoRI News (RI)
August 6, 2021

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — Tom Grieb walks the trails around Lower Melville Pond on Aquidneck Island. This has been his only exercise since he decided a gym was counterproductive at his age. The area also served as his escape from home isolation during the early lockdown days of the pandemic.

“This is gorgeous,” he said, looking across the still body of water formed by a dam at a corner of the pond. In the opposite direction, Narragansett Bay is visible a few hundred yards below. “This is why I want to make sure it’s preserved properly.”

Grieb is worried about the quiet waters framing his walking route through the forest and open areas in Melville Park. As a member of the Naval Station Newport Restoration Advisory Board, he is acutely aware of toxins leaching into the area’s waterways, including eight small ponds, and a shelf in Narragansett Bay fronting his neighborhood. He said the pollution originates from the military base’s properties on the higher ground nearby that stored fuel, a refueling depot operated there from 1900 to the mid-1970s, and other materials.


…

For the entire article, see
https://www.ecori.org/public-safety/2021/8/4/pfas-contamination-from-aquidneck-island-navy-base-worries-neighbors

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel at cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)