NATO’s Nuclear Bases Have Poisoned Water and Fish

Nuclear armed air bases at Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi in Italy, and Volkel in the Netherlands have poisoned the environment with PFAS.

Massive fires were intentionally lit in large fire pits at these bases and extinguished with cancer-causing fire-fighting foams during routine training exercises dating back 40 years or longer.  Afterward, the foam residue was typically allowed to run off or drain into the soil. The “forever chemicals” pollute the soil, sewers, sediment, surface water, groundwater, and the air. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) bases regularly tested sprinkler systems in hangars to create a carcinogenic foam layer to coat the expensive aircraft. The sprinkler systems often malfunctioned. The foams were sent to sewers or deposited in groundwater or surface water.

The PFAS-laden foams work miraculously well in putting out super-hot petroleum-based fires, but remarkable technologies may escape our control and imperil humanity.

Two astonishing inventions in 1938 are like Daedalus’ fastening of wings to wax: the splitting of the uranium atom by German scientists and the discovery of per – and poly fluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS) by Dupont chemists in New Jersey.  It’s not a stretch. Both nuclear weaponry and PFAS chemicals are existential threats to humanity. Their development and use are inextricably linked.

Wherever nuclear weapons are found, huge quantities of PFAS foams are ready to be used to snuff out a fire that may cause unimaginable destruction.

Like Pandora’s nightmare, once PFAS is let loose we can’t get it back in the box. We can’t get rid of it. We can’t bury it. We can’t incinerate it. We don’t know what to do with it. Notions of ”cleaning up” PFAS from these practices are largely misguided, propagandistic ploys promulgated by the U.S. military.

The Fish at Büchel Air Base

The base is located in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of western Germany, about 60 km from the border with Belgium and Luxembourg. A German Brown Trout caught in the Pahlbach, downstream from Büchel Air Base, contained 769 μg/kg of PFOS, a particularly deadly type of PFAS.

769 ug/kg = 769 micrograms per kilogram.
769 micrograms per kilogram = 769 parts per billion.
769 parts per billion = 769,000 parts per trillion (ppt).

People eat these fish.

The US EPA, meanwhile, is enforcing a limit of 4 ppt for PFOS in drinking water. Throughout most of the world municipal water providers are removing the majority of PFAS from drinking water supplies while governments largely ignore the threat of poisoned food, especially the fish. Regular ingestion of just 1 part per trillion is associated with a higher risk of developing cancer.

 The European Environment Agency’s Drinking Water Directive limits total PFAS in drinking water to 500 ppt and levels for 20 individual PFAS (including PFOS) to 100 ppt. Meanwhile Germans are free to eat the  fish containing PFOS 7,690 times more than the standard for drinking water.

The European Environment Agency has also set a a largely unenforced Environmental Quality Standard, (EQS) level for fish at 9,100 ppt. Scientists have scoffed at this ridiculously high level since it was promulgated. The agency has proposed to update the EQS for fish from 9,100 ppt to 77 ppt. This limit will apply to a sum of 24 PFAS, according to a “potency factor.”

We only know the results in the Brown Trout for one compound – PFOS.  Often, fish may contain more than a dozen compounds and sometimes, the levels of these chemicals surpass that of the PFOS. If the EU actually passes and enforces the new regulation, eating fish throughout large areas of the continent with be “verboten.”

The Water at Büchel Air Base

Surface water on Büchel Air Base was reported  at 1,866.32 ppt. In 2016 PFOS was detected at 3,200 ppt in the surrounding bodies of water and in the rainwater retention basins of Buchel Airbase.

The highest concentrations of PFOS in the streams were found in the Pahlbach running north of the municipality of Büchel Pahlbach at 1,151 ppt.   This is significant because PFOS may bioaccumulate in aquatic life from several hundred times to 2,000 times the ambient water level.  If the concentration of PFOS was 1,151 ppt where the brown trout was caught that contained 769,000 ppt, there is a bioaccumulation factor of 668. (769,000 / 1,151).

The European Environment Agency has set an EQS of 0.65 ppt for PFOS in the streams. They recognize the propensity of the carcinogen to bioaccumulate.  The 1,151 ppt in the Pahlbach is 1,770 times over the EQS.

Minnesota has established a threshold for water and fish in some of its lakes. They know a lot about PFAS because killer/liar 3M is located there. The PFOS value for fish tissue is a maximum of 370 ppt and the value for water in the lakes is a maximum 0.05 ppt of PFOS in water. They understand some things in Minnesota

There is no enforcement of these releases from NATO bases in Europe. NATO has managed to carve out legal exceptionalism. Poisoned people can’t sue them.

The Pahlbach stream, containing 1,151 ppt of PFOS, is shown in Blue.

200 ppt to 1,100 ppt of PFOS were measured at the: Arsch Lena stream in the village of Alflen, (Yellow)  at the Perlbach stream north of Büchel (Orange)  and at the Ellerbach stream west of Büchelwiesen, (Green).  

Based on these results, the German government classifies the chemical status of these water bodies as “not good.”

In the course of soil investigations, PFOS concentrations were discovered at a maximum 100,000 ppt approximately 2.5 meters below the ground.

This can be likened to a massive subterranean sponge perpetually squeezing out the carcinogens into groundwater, surface water, and the air.

Tests have been conducted at air bases in the US with similar levels of PFAS contamination. 16.4 million ppt of PFHxS and 13.9 million ppt of PFOS were found in the dust of the homes of people in Martinsburg, West Virginia near the Shephard Field Air National Guard base.  What’s in your dust, Büchel, and what are you doing to protect the little ones who crawl on the floor?

Nuclear Bases

Büchel Air Base, known in Germany as Der Fliegerhorst Büchel, is the home of approximately 15 US thermonuclear weapons, carried by the German Luftwaffe’s Panavia Tornado fighter jets. F-35’s are scheduled to replace the Tornadoes. The Luftwaffe is working to upgrade the runway for the arrival of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter later this decade.

Each bomb can deliver a blast 22 times greater than Hiroshima.

German pilots will take off with these weapons if the order comes from President Biden. The squadron of fighter jets directly supports the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) contingency and wartime operations and its strike mission.

The German Tornadoes are fitted with B61 nuclear bombs. The B61 features a “dial-a-yield” capability with a yield of 0.3 to 340 kilotons.  The Hiroshima bomb contained 15 kilotons, the same as 15,000 tons of TNT.

These “scalable” nuclear devices may be programmed enroute, allowing for a variety of tactical responses. A yield of .3 kilotons is 2% of the blast of Hiroshima’s Little Boy. This enables NATO to annihilate neighborhoods or advancing tanks rather than entire cities.  This option lowers the threshold, the proclivity to use these weapons.

About 100 B61’s are stored at six bases: Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel Air Base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi Air Base in Italy, Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands and Incirlik in Turkey.

Let’s briefly examine the PFAS contamination at these facilities, courtesy of the data gathered by LeMonde’s Forever Pollution Project.

Kleine-Brogel Airbase, Belgium

Kleine-Brogel Airbase in Peer, Belgium was found to have 416,000 ppt of  PFAS in soil. This total includes 360,000 ppt of PFOS, 7,300 ppt of PFOA, 2,500 ppt of PFNA, and 5,400 ppt of PFHxS.

Buchel Air Base reported 100,000 ppt of PFOS in soil, so Kleine-Brogel appears to be substantially more contaminated than Buchel, based on the limited data. It was unusual when the contamination at Kleine-Brogel was reported in the local newspaper.  The mayor of Peer said he was concerned about levels of the contaminants in groundwater and in airborne dust. He knows how bad it is.

Examine LeMonde’s map to see how Belgium is fantastically contaminated with PFAS from military and industrial sources.

There is very little data from Aviano, but we are able to document dangerous levels of PFAS in groundwater in Roveredo In Piano, about 4,000 feet south of the runway. Compared to the previous numbers we’ve witnessed, the 75 ppt of PFAS in groundwater may seem trivial.

The 35 ppt of PFOS in Aviano’s water is 8.75 times higher than the level the US allows. The groundwater sample was taken 4,000 feet from the runway at nuclear armed Aviano. The 20 ppt of PFHxS in Aviano is twice the amount permitted in the US.

We don’t know the depth of the water sample taken at this well. At various locations in the US, the military has published data showing relatively low levels of PFAS just a few feet under the surface, while also displaying low results 200 feet down. Because the carcinogens tend to seep gradually into the soil, substantially higher levels may be found somewhere in between. They call that the “sweet spot.” There may be some hocus pocus going on.

Often, there are well defined groundwater plumes that carry the carcinogens. If enough wells are drilled and tested, we can begin to learn how it works!

Ghedi Air Base, Italy

Surface water contained 1,659 ppt of total PFAS about two miles south of the runway at Ghedi Air Base, Italy.  Note the 1,000 ppt of PFBS in surface water. The compound has been used as a replacement for PFOS in firefighting foams. Ample evidence confirms the toxicity effects PFBS has on several organ systems, including  cardiac, immune, hepatic, and reproductive systems. PFBS bioaccumulates in fish, although few seem to know or care.

Those who treat people who are sick and dying of disease and cancer are rightfully today’s heroes, but those who attempt to pinpoint the source of these diseases are enemies of the state.

Incirlik Air Base in Turkey is presumed to have contaminated the environment although we do not have PFAS data from the base.

NATO

On July 10 NATO released the following statement after its Washington Summit: “We are further accelerating the modernisation of our collective defence and are investing in our Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear defence capabilities required to effectively operate in all environments.” Notice how they capitalize the powerful gods of our age.

NATO’s bases contaminate the continent. Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear agents don’t just terrorize the enemy, they also endanger people at home.

Buchel Shrine, Peace Camp, and jailed resisters

There’s a Catholic shrine in the Peace Camp adjacent to Büchel Air Base. It  is just 200 meters from the main gate and it is seen by 2,000 soldiers and civilians as they enter the base every day. The shrine depicts Jesus breaking a gun in two. It says, “Think – Atomic weapons are a crime against God and Humanity.”

Catholic Workers Susan Crane and Susan van der Hijden were imprisoned on June 4, 2024 for their nonviolent nuclear disarmament actions at Büchel air base. Crane is serving a 229-day sentence, and Van der Hijden a 115-day sentence. They write to us from a German prison:

“We are sitting in a prison cell, 123 km from Büchel Air Force Base, where ~20 U.S. nuclear bombs are deployed. The judges and prosecutors, as well as the guards in prison, treat us respectfully and politely while at the same time sticking to laws and rules that are unjust and cause suffering. The biggest crime in their eyes is to upset the “order,” even though the order is set up to be criminal.

We wake up every day with determined joy to continue our “vigil behind bars.”  

You can send letters to them, individually addressed to each at:
JVA Rohrbach, Peter-Caesar-Allee 1,
55597 Wöllstein, Germany.

Plain White Envelope and Paper. No Glitter. No Stickers. No Perfume. No Cards!