If you live in Spring Lake within a one-mile radius of Fort Liberty and draw your water from a well, there’s a likelihood you’ve been exposed to high levels of so-called “forever chemicals” discharged from the military installation.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl, is a group of about 15,000 man-made chemicals. Exposure to PFAS is linked to a number of adverse health effects, ranging from cancer to heart disease to reproductive issues. The toxic chemicals are pervasive and long-lasting in the environment and in humans exposed through drinking water, food and household items, among other exposure paths.
Fort Liberty and the U.S. Army Environmental Command officials announced in a press conference Thursday they’d tested 12 private wells within one mile of the military installation’s perimeter. The result: four had levels of PFAS higher than allowed under the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules, which will go into effect nationally in 2029.
Garrison Commander Col. Chad Mixon said the Army was dedicated to providing up-to-date, accurate information to the public about the PFAS contamination.
“The Army remains committed to taking care of our people in the communities in which we serve,” Mixon said. “We’ll remain responsible with this as the Army, in conjunction with our partners, Army Environmental Command. We’ll remain transparent. We’ll continue to get information.”
The chemicals identified originated from the firefighting foam AFFF, Paul Humphrey of the U.S. Army Environmental Command said on Thursday. AFFF, or aqueous film-forming foam, is a fire suppressant that is made with toxic PFAS chemicals. Developed by the U.S. Navy and chemical company 3M in the 1960s, AFFF results in PFAS remaining in the environment and contaminating waterways, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
Humphrey said AFFF has been used on post since the 1970s. Fort Liberty began testing for PFAS in Spring Lake wells surrounding the installation in 2023 after finding contaminated groundwater in areas on post.
“What the army made a determination to do was to, in abundance of caution, to say, ‘All right, we need to find out, off the installation, are there private potable wells, drinking water wells that private citizens off the installation are using?’” Humphrey said. “And so we started that assessment.”
The announcement comes three months after the EPA announced, in Fayetteville, unprecedented rules to regulate the levels of PFAS public water utilities can have in their drinking water. Now, the Army is hoping to test more wells in Spring Lake and generate public interest.
“We want to be in front of this with transparency on all of the information that we have available,” Humphrey said, referring to the Army’s efforts to get into compliance with the EPA’s rules.
Fort Liberty also held an open house Thursday evening in Spring Lake, which included representatives from the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality, N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Service, the Army Environmental Command and Fort Liberty. The open house consisted of several information stations where attendees could learn about PFAS and the areas where Fort Liberty has been identified as possible contamination zones. Staff from the various parties were also there to answer residents’ questions — though only a small number of residents attended.
In a separate announcement Friday, the EPA announced a national program with the Army to sample drinking water wells near military installations. Fort Liberty is part of nine installations being tested in the pilot program, selected from 235 possible locations.
The army’s efforts to test wells surrounding installations comes as the U.S. military is facing dozens of lawsuits over PFAS contamination in communities surrounding installations, with plaintiffs citing the widespread use of toxic firefighting foam, among other contamination sources.
According to the publicly-available data referenced by officials on Thursday, of the private wells tested for PFOA and PFOS — two kinds of PFAS that were recently identified as carcinogenic and possibly carcinogenic, respectively, by the World Health Organization — in close proximity to Fort Liberty, four wells had levels higher than the EPA’s new limits. The highest levels of this group were found to have PFOS levels of 42.2 ppt and PFOA levels of 16.7 ppt. That’s lower than the EPA’s 2016 advisory of 70 ppt, but significantly higher than the EPA’s 2024 rules, which are 4 ppt for PFOS and PFOA.
The Army determined which private landowners to contact based on testing at Fort Liberty, which consisted of primarily taking soil and groundwater samples, as well as some surface water samples, Humphrey said. The Army identified 43 “areas of potential interest” where the firefighting foam could have caused groundwater PFAS contamination, and used that to determine which areas off the installation were likely to also be contaminated, Humphrey said.
“What we did is look at old records where AFFF would have been used, where training would have happened, where an actual emergency response occurred, and where any spills may have happened historically,” Humphrey said. “And so once we kind of knew where those areas were, we did a site inspection.”
In total, the investigations found 122 parcels that had private wells and were possibly contaminated with PFAS from the firefighting foam used on Fort Liberty.
The DoD is in the process of investigating 717 military installations identified as potentially releasing PFAS into the environment, according to its interactive data website.
The military is already providing water to off-base communities surrounding 53 installations with PFOS and PFOA levels higher than the EPA’s 2016 levels, according to the 2023 DoD report. The vast majority of the installations are Air Force or Navy, with only six Army installations included, according to the report.
A 2023 analysis from the Environmental Working Group of publicly available DoD water sampling data found that, near 63 military bases, 2,805 drinking water samples taken from off-base wells were contaminated with PFOA and PFOS.
What’s next?
Humphrey said the one-mile radius was a “conservative distance” designed to “capture any potential impacts” of the PFAS originating from Fort Liberty. As more data becomes available, Humphrey said, the potential areas of testing could expand.
Humphrey said that the Army has been “pursuing the research and development” of a firefighting foam that doesn’t contain PFAS, and they have already been using the PFAS-free foam at Fort Liberty.
The Army will be doing additional assessments in the future in areas with confirmed levels above the new EPA limits of PFOA and PFOS, following this initial testing, Humphrey said. Right now, he said, the Army is working on determining “the best approach to make sure that nobody is drinking water that has been impacted or that is due to something that the army has done that’s above that MCL” set by the EPA.
If wells are found to have high levels of PFAS based on the Army’s testing, Humphrey said the army will assist well owners in getting clean water using the “best approach” depending on the circumstance.
“It may be connecting them to the community water source that’s available,” Humphrey said. “It could be the whole home filtration systems that are available. In some cases, potentially bottled water. Bottled water is a difficult long-term solution for anybody.”
More information about the DoD’s efforts to address PFAS contamination is available on the Army’s PFAS website. Residents requesting information about PFAS testing visit Fort Liberty’s website or call 910-396-6518.
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