The government-funding deal struck Sunday by Congress requires the Department of Defense to identify all military bases where a long-used firefighting foam contaminated drinking water wells and to establish uniform clean-up procedures.
Under the resolution, the Pentagon must give Congress a list of affected sites within 120 days, and include its plans for telling communities about the contamination and when it was detected.
The provision amounts to the first federal mandate to the Defense Department to deal with the potentially widespread contamination, and what is likely to be billions of dollars’ and years’ worth of cleanup. The chemicals, known as PFOS and PFOA, have been linked to health risks, but are not regulated by the EPA.