When the planes burned, the kids would come out. Hope Grosse and her siblings would run down their Warminster street and rubberneck amid shrieking sirens. They would watch Navy firefighters shoot a dense white foam from hoses, smothering the flames that leapt up from the fenced-off lot.
Hope Grosse and brother Chris Martindell used to climb the fence near their Warminster home to play at the Naval Air Warfare Center. Grosse says she drank the water there for years. “How long is it going to take to get out of my body?”Hope Grosse and her siblings would run down their Warminster street and rubberneck amid shrieking sirens. They would watch Navy firefighters shoot a dense white foam from hoses, smothering the flames that leapt up from the fenced-off lot.
Two former bases just north of Philadelphia have become the first Navy sites linked to drinking water tainted by these chemicals. As the Department of Defense investigates others across the country, what happens here could help shape the response nationwide. Officials say the public wells still operating in and around the former stations in Warminster and Willow Grove meet today's safety standards.
The bases once teemed with thousands of pilots, personnel, and civilian employees, boosting area businesses and providing impromptu air shows as planes roared in the skies.Hangar 175 at Willow Grove once sheltered four planes at a time but now sits vacant and ghostly. Inside, bright red cannons ring the perimeter, each connected to pipes that pumped the foam to the hangar.
At Willow Grove, the foam was used as recently as 2010. Some contamination occurred when fire suppression systems went off, releasing the foam. Navy reports describe hundreds of gallons going into sewage drains in some of these instances. Navy tests detected PFOA and PFOS in groundwater at Willow Grove and Warminster in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
In the three townships, one-third of 342 homes with private wells have tested positive for unacceptable contamination. The EPA has identified about an additional 120 private wells for testing, but is awaiting residents' permission. The agency concedes there could be even more, but there is no complete database of private wells.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health and federal agencies are analyzing cancer data for the area; results are expected this summer. Preston, coordinating Navy response, said he understands frustration."We'll have as many hearings and as many sessions as we need to," he said.State Rep. Todd Stephens lives in Horsham. His family now drinks only bottled water. He started pressing for state action earlier this year after hearing from constituents.
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