CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Water Contamination Feds: Pease health studies are ‘feasible’ Full analysis to be released at later date

Portsmouth Herald - 4/22/2017

PORTSMOUTH – A federal agency released what its director described as a “short summary of the types of health outcomes we think are feasible to study” for the children and adults who were exposed to dangerous chemicals in contaminated water at the former Pease Air Force Base.

Patrick N. Breysse, the director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, released the short version of the feasibility assessment for possible health studies at Pease after an agency official recently told members of the Community Assistance Panel they wouldn’t release one.

CAP member and Portsmouth resident Andrea Amico said Friday she didn’t know “why they were going to do it and then not do and then they did it, but I’m happy that they did.”

The release came after the N.H. Congressional delegation pressured Breysse to release the feasibility assessment.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen spoke with Breysse on Thursday to express her concerns about the delayed feasibility study on the health impacts Seacoast residents could be facing from their exposure to PFCs in drinking water from a city-owned well.

Breysse then shared the shorter version with CAP members later in the day.

Amico credited the “very strong support of our elected officials in New Hampshire with perhaps helping to motivate them (the ATSDR) to be more responsive to the community.”

The shorter version of the assessment “will be followed by a longer, more comprehensive analysis as soon possible,” Breysse stated in the letter to CAP members.

“I extend my deepest apologies for the length of time it took ATSDR to deliver this document to the CAP, and I feel confident that the feasibility assessment will guide decision making going forward,” he said.

The news comes nearly three years after the city of Portsmouth closed the Haven well at Pease International Tradeport in May 2014 after the Air Force found dangerous levels of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, at 12.5 times higher than what was then the EPA’s provisional health advisory.

The EPA has since dramatically lower its health advisory.

The EPA classified PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, as “contaminants of emerging concern,” because of their suspected health effects. The contaminated city-owned well exposed the children at two day cares at the Pease tradeport and more than 9,000 employees to the dangerous chemicals.

The ATSDR, while working on the assessment “found that most information on potential health effects concerned exposures to PFOA,” the short version states.

“Much less information was available for PFOS exposures, and very little information was available for PFHxS exposures,” it states. “In general, there was limited information on the human health effects of PFAS exposures because research is still at an early stage. Because of this research gap, health studies of the Pease population might contribute to scientific knowledge about the health effects of PFAS exposure, in particular, PFOS and PFHxS exposure.”

The ATSDR believes that “several health-related endpoints could be considered for studies of the Pease population,” the assessment states.

“However, whether it is feasible to study a specific health-related endpoint depends to a great extent on the size of the exposed population that can be recruited into a study,” the assessment stated.

The assessment states that a bigger population than just the adults and children exposed at Pease will be needed to study if PFC exposure can cause cancer.

But the assessment states that the health studies can be done on the Pease population to address a number of other possible health effects from PFC exposure.

Amico called the release “a positive step in the right direction.”

“I’m pleased some studies specific to Pease and some studies that are larger scale can be done,” Amico said.

She believes it will be “very easy to find participants in other communities to participate in larger scale studies on cancer.”

Air Force officials believe the Haven well was contaminated by firefighting foam used at the former Air Force Base, which is a Superfund cleanup site.

“It won’t be for a lack of community participation that these studies won’t be successful,” Amico predicted.

She also is glad that the ATSDR is open to studying not only the health effects of exposure from PFOS and PFOA, but also PFHxS.

“I think there is a significant data gap on health studies pertaining to PFHxS specifically,” Amico said. “ I think that our community, given our very high levels of PFHxS in our blood, would be an ideal community to study.”

She continued to push for the release of the full assessment on health studies.

“Without that full assessment, we can’t move on to securing funding from the Department of Defense to start gathering the health data,” she said. “We still need the full version as soon as possible.”

Former City Councilor and current CAP member Stefany Shaheen had not yet seen the assessment on Friday.

But she said “we’re very happy to have at least a short version and we wish we had it sooner.”

U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, said Friday “the feasibility assessment is an important step forward for community members who are understandably concerned about the potential health impacts of exposure to these emerging contaminants.”

“I am pleased to see that, after my office worked to try to make this assessment public, the ATSDR has released a short version, and I continue to urge ATSDR to release the full feasibility assessment and reschedule the next CAP meeting as soon as possible,” Hassan said.