Read the full article by Matt Dotray (Statesman)

“The area around the former Reese Air Force Base was one of eight locations chosen in the country for an upcoming PFAS exposure assessment.

Residents in the targeted area east of the former base are being asked to participate in a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)…

What the study hopes to learn is the levels of PFAS – an abbreviation for several man made chemicals – found in the blood and urine of people who drank the water containing the chemical, as well as the range of PFAS levels in the tested community and the environmental factors that might affect PFAS levels.

This information should be made public in several years.

What local residents won’t learn from this study is if PFAS levels in someone’s blood or urine can make them sick or if a health condition was caused by PFAS exposure. Members of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry say the actual health impact is being studied elsewhere, and will be further studied further down the road…

Residents around the base gathered in the cafeteria at Terra Vista Middle School Wednesday evening to hear about the exposure assessment. There was a table for volunteers to sign up, and a constant line of people waited to do so…

The community talks of neighbors dying young, animals getting sick for no reason and doctors saying they have the health of someone twice their age. Residents only theorize that it’s linked to PFAS levels.

According to previous stories in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the Air Force previously stated that groundwater at sites around the former Reese Air Force Base were found to have high levels of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, often referred to as PFAS, contained in a foam used since 1970 by the Air Force to extinguish fires…

ATSDR is looking for hundreds of participants in this study. When it’s complete, individual results will be sent to participants and ATSDR will complete a full analysis describing its findings.

Only individuals living in the sampling area and using groundwater will be in the study. Nobody getting water from the City of Lubbock will be in the study since the city has different water sources.

Citizens living in the targeted area, but who didn’t attend the meeting last week, will be contacted by ATSDR.”