Detroit Free Press

As a Michigan state legislator in the 1970s, my father led the fight to tackle one of the worst contamination crises in U.S. history. "The Poisoning of Michigan" (as coined by author Joyce Egginton) occurred when the toxic fire retardant PBB, or polybrominated biphenyl, was accidentally mixed with livestock feed, tainting meat and dairy products sold throughout the state. As a result of cover-ups and special-interest delay tactics, virtually everyone in Michigan ingested PBB contaminated food products before my father's health protective legislation became law. Now, more than four decades later, scientists are still documenting negative health impacts in the third generation of PBB exposed families in our state.

Today, we face a crisis much larger than PBB. A class of chemicals known as PFAS, or per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, has contaminated water, food and ecosystems throughout our state and nation. To name just some examples, PFAS chemicals have been found in all of the Great Lakes, in public water systems serving more than 1.9 million Michigan residents, and in food products, packaging and personal care items. It is estimated that more than 98%of Americans have PFAS chemicals in their blood. The most studied PFAS chemical has been linked to a number of adverse health conditions, including thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, pregnancy complications and certain cancers. A leading federal scientist has called PFAS “one of the most seminal public health challenges” of the coming decades.

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PFAS contamination has directly impacted me and my family. We have a home in Oscoda, where the U.S. Air Force released massive amounts of PFAS contaminants in fire fighting foam at the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base. Like hundreds of other Oscoda families, we have been advised not to drink the water from our private well. Our community has also been warned not to eat any non-migratory fish from a nine-mile stretch of the Au Sable River, not to eat any venison from deer harvested within five miles of the former base, and not to ingest or come in contact with any highly contaminated foam on surface water, beaches and shorelines at Oscoda's Van Etten Lake.

Unfortunately, the Oscoda experience is an ominous harbinger for other communities facing PFAS contamination. Michigan regulators discovered the Oscoda PFAS contamination in 2010, making Wurtsmith the first of hundreds of PFAS contaminated military installations around the country. More than nine years into the process in Oscoda, the Air Force has no clean-up plan in place. In fact, the Air Force will not even say when it might have a plan.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters has accurately described the Air Force's conduct in Oscoda as aggressively "defensive" and "unproductive." While subjecting other communities around the country to similar treatment, the Department of Defense has worked behind the scenes to push the EPA to relax its already weak PFAS regulatory stance. The Department of Defense and the EPA also applied pressure to suppress a health-based, federal study on PFAS, fearing that its release would create "a public relations nightmare." These efforts have negatively impacted PFAS clean-up efforts at military and non-military sites throughout Michigan and the nation.

In the U.S. Congress, members of both political parties have come to recognize the critical need for legislative action to combat the PFAS crisis and rein in the Department of Defense. Both the Senate and the House have passed versions of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, containing important PFAS amendments. These mostly bi-partisan amendments include provisions requiring greater accountability for Department of Defense clean-ups, a phase-out of PFAS fire fighting foams, and the legal classification of PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances. When they return from summer recess, congressional leaders will begin the process of reconciling the Senate and House versions of the NDAA. In that process, it is crucial that the PFAS amendments survive in their most protective forms.

For our families, for our children and for future generations, our government must act decisively and without delay to stem the PFAS crisis. That's the lesson of PBB. That's the reality we confront every day in Oscoda, Michigan and in the growing number of PFAS impacted communities around the country. And that's why all of us should urge our U.S. Senators and members of Congress to fight for the PFAS amendments and make every effort to assure that they become law.

Anthony M. Spaniola is an attorney in metro Detroit and a founding member of the Need Our Water (NOW) community action group in Oscoda. His father is former state Rep. Francis R. Spaniola, D-Corunna.