Pentagon’s ‘forever chemicals’ cleanup budget falls ‘dramatically’ short

PFAS foam gathers in a creek. Military bases are a major source of pollution because the DoD has used firefighting foam that contains high levels of the chemicals during training and emergencies. Photograph: Jake May/AP

The cost of cleaning up toxic PFAS “forever chemical” contamination around hundreds of US military installations is ballooning, but Congress and the Pentagon are failing to keep pace, a development that is leaving service members and civilians indefinitely at risk, a new analysis finds.

The estimated total cost for remediating about 50 contaminated military sites has soared to $31bn, up by $3.7bn from 2016 to 2021, the last year the Department of Defense provided estimates. But its requested cleanup budget increased just $400m over the same period, according to the new report by Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit that tracks the military’s PFAS pollution.