Eastern Iowa Airport testing more private wells for PFAS

The Eastern Iowa Airport is testing private wells this fall to determine if “forever chemicals” found in wells and groundwater around the Cedar Rapids airport may also have traveled southward to wells in Swisher.

Samples taken in March at the headwaters of Plum Creek, which starts south of the airport and flows into the Iowa River, showed combined levels of one type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were 2,000 times higher than the standard for safe drinking water.

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By testing 20 wells, as well as sampling groundwater and soil, airport leaders hope to understand the scope and direction of PFAS contamination and see if there is evidence of a link between tainted wells and firefighting foam used for decades at the airport.

“Where is it? Where is it going?” Airport Director Marty Lenss said he hopes to learn about PFAS through the site assessment. “I believe, by the airport being proactive, it will position us well for when we expect to see federal cleanup dollars available.”

PFAS in firefighting foam

Called “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down, PFAS may affect human reproduction, thyroid function and cause developmental delays in children, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Minnesota-based 3M started manufacturing PFAS in the 1950s, putting the chemicals into clothing, furniture, adhesives, food packaging and other products to help them resist heat, oil, stains, grease and water.

After a deadly aircraft carrier fire in 1967, the U.S. Navy and 3M created aqueous film-forming foam for firefighters to use on liquid fuel fires. PFAS were added to help smother the flames.

Until recently, the Federal Aviation Administration required airports keep the foam on hand and test with it so firefighters are prepared for a plane fire. In previous years, firefighters sprayed the foam in the grass at the airport as part of daily checks of the firetrucks. Now they just test with water, storing the foam in 5-gallon buckets on an aboveground trailer.

Other Eastern Iowa fire crews also have used foam with PFAS. When a shingle recycling plant exploded and caught fire last December in Marengo, one or more of the responding agencies brought aqueous film-forming foam. The state then had to spend nearly $900,000 removing PFAS from water in a retention basin near the C6-Zero plant.

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Airports and military bases linked to PFAS pollution

Decades of using the foam — even if just for daily tests — has caused PFAS contamination around airports and military installations across the country.

The Environmental Working Group has mapped 710 military installations, including some in Iowa, with known or suspected PFAS discharges. Municipal airports in California, Washington state, Alaska and other states have informed residents about PFAS contamination in nearby wells.

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David Cwiertny, a University of Iowa engineering professor and director of the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination, heard about PFAS spreading through groundwater around airports. Starting in 2020, he worked with Linn County Public Health to test nearby private wells. They tested 14 wells and found PFAS at levels above the previous EPA standard in two wells.

The well of Paul and Nikki Hynek, who live on Walford Road just south of The Eastern Iowa Airport, had more than three times the amount of PFAS allowed under a previous EPA standard. The airport is in ongoing negotiations with the Hyneks about possibilities that include buying the couple’s home or paying for their new well.

Although the airport acknowledges the PFAS contamination on and around its property, leaders don’t know if it was from the firefighting foam or something else. Part of the site assessment will involve taking soil samples from airport-owned farm fields where biosolids from wastewater treatment were applied between 2006 and 2012.

The airport will send complete the report by April.

PFAS Site Assessment 8.23 by Gazetteonline on Scribd

Did PFAS travel to Swisher?

Scientists and environmental regulators wonder if there may be a plume of PFAS spreading underground away from The Eastern Iowa Airport.

“It will be necessary to eventually determine whether the apparently broad groundwater contamination in the vicinity of Swisher is connected to that found in the vicinity of the CID property,” Matthew Graesch, an environmental specialist with the Iowa DNR’s Land Quality Bureau wrote in April to Todd Gibbs, airport operations director.

Earlier this year, Cwiertny worked with the U.S. Geological Survey to test sites in southern Linn and northern Johnson counties as part of a larger statewide study.

Several Corridor sites tested above the EPA’s drinking water standard of 4 parts per trillion, but at one site where a tile line appears to run from the airport grounds into the headwaters of Plum Creek, the combined perfluorooctane aulfonate (PFOS) were 8,700 parts per trillion.

“Additional work is needed to better understand how the PFAS in Plum Creek is impacting the quality of groundwater in the area that is supplying private wells, where we know PFAS has also been detected,” Cwiertny said.

Johnson County Public Health has found PFAS in several wells in Swisher, a community of 900 that relies on private wells. The positive PFAS tests were among reasons city leaders gave earlier this year for a proposed $19.2 million public water project. The project would have included two new city wells and a water tower. But the measure flopped, with 84.2 percent of Swisher voters saying no.

Debbie Davis, who has lived in Swisher for 23 years, voted against the city water plan, which she saw primarily benefiting developers rather than current residents. Although the new city wells would have been deeper than other residential wells, Davis said she’s not sure whether they would have remained PFAS free.

Davis’s well has trace amounts of PFAS. She doesn’t want to pay for a reverse osmosis system to filter out all the chemicals, but she does pour her tap water through a Brita filter, which removes some PFAS.

“I'm not extremely concerned about it,” she said. “I can’t worry about everything.”

Airport shifting to PFAS-free foam

The FAA announced Sept. 13 it would now let 139 airports, including The Eastern Iowa Airport, to start using new PFAS-free foams approved by the U.S. Defense Department.

The Eastern Iowa Airport Commission last month voted to let Lenss to spend up to $50,000 on PFAS-free foam. The airport will send firefighters to a training in Dallas in November to learn how to use the new foam, he said. They still need to figure out how to clean out existing trucks before putting in the new foam.

“There's a host of things we still have to work through before we make the purchase, but a lot of those steps are in motion,” Lenss said. “The airport industry has taken it head on to learn quickly so we can continue to be good stewards of our environment.”

Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com