Read the full article by Garret Ellison (MLive)
“OSCODA, MI — When Sen. Gary Peters, in a committee hearing this month, asked a senior official whether the Air Force would begin using new federal health advisory levels for PFAS in its cleanups, the answer was pretty equivocal.
Maybe. We’re going to look at it. That’s essentially what Nancy Balkus, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for environment, told Peters on Aug. 1.
When Mark Henry, a former state regulator who co-chairs an advisory board that provides community input to the toxic chemical cleanup at the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda, asked the same question, the answer from the new Air Force site manager at the base was more direct.
‘Those EPA numbers are interim numbers; they are not enforceable. They are advisory numbers. So, at this point in time, we are not using them,’ said Steven Willis, the newly assigned Air Force site manager at Wurtsmith.
‘We are continuing to use the (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, EGLE) values that have been promulgated,’ Willis continued, in reference to state standards which govern PFAS cleanup in groundwater.
Willis’ admission came amid an Aug. 17 Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) meeting in which advocates and local officials sought expansion of stopgap cleanup measures around the base and pressed for community access to technical meetings about the yearslong PFAS cleanup.” …