OSCODA, MI -- Traci Kroushour is 39 and will never have children.

That's not by choice. All she ever wanted was to become a mother. But Kroushour's uterus was removed at age 28 after two miscarriages and a lifetime of chronic ailments like bone death, fibromyalgia, irregular heartbeat, gastrointestinal problems and underdeveloped reproductive organs.

Kroushour lived on Montana Street in Oscoda until she was 12, in a neighborhood with other military kids whose parents were stationed at Wurtsmith Air Force Base. Her brother died of a heart attack at age 28. Two other men who lived on her street also died of unexplained heart failure at a relatively young age.

Other women she knew from the neighborhood have struggled with strange reproductive health problems. Causes for all of them have been elusive.

But Kroushour and others who lived on base over the past several decades think they've found the culprit: the water at Wursmith. While living in Oscoda, they all drank, cooked with, bathed in, swam in and fished in the water, never knowing that most of the base and some adjacent ground is polluted with jet fuel, cancer-causing chlorinated solvents and toxic fire retardants.

Scattered around the country, most of them never knew about the pollution until Michigan officials in February warned about consuming well water near Wurtsmith base -- the latest chapter in a decades-long groundwater contamination saga.

"I cried," said Kroushour, who lives in Dillsburg, Pa. "I was infuriated."

"This was a place I called home; where all my childhood memories were made," she said. "To think the place I loved so dearly made me sick is just horrific."

The decommissioned base, once home to nuclear-armed B-52s, is dropping bombshells of a different sort these days. Although chlorinated solvents have plagued the base since the 1970s, toxic fluorocarbons discovered in 2010 are now showing up in concentrations above federal guidelines and investigators say plumes may have been leaching through the groundwater for years.

Wells down-gradient of the base are catching unsafe levels of perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) -- also called polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) -- a large class of compounds being studied as "emerging contaminants," which have been widely used to make consumer products more resistant to stains, fire and water.

In Oscoda, the plumes came from a PFC-laden fire suppression tool called Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF), which the military and airports around the world have used since the 1970s to quash jet fuel fires.

Over the past six months, dozens of wells near the base have tested positive for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctyl sulfonate (PFOS), a pair of PFCs tied to thyroid, kidney, liver and reproductive problems. In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established 70 parts per trillion (ppt) as the PFOS and PFOA health advisory level, a non-enforceable exposure benchmark.

One well next to the base tested for 3,300 ppt for PFOA and 96 ppt for PFOS.

But, those are just two PFCs out of 19 showing up in Oscoda water. Other PFCs are being found in higher concentrations, but officials can't do much about that because too little is known about their effects on humans and the EPA hasn't established any regulatory limits or exposure advisories for them.

Unanswered questions worry state investigators. How do the other PFCs affect humans? How long have they been in the groundwater? How concentrated have they been in the past? If nothing is done, could concentrations increase?

With PFOS and PFOA, "we know they can cause adverse health effects in research animals," said Christina Bush, a toxicologist with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. "In communities where drinking water has been contaminated, long-term studies have made some links between certain health outcomes and exposure to the chemicals."

Thyroid problems, in particular, are a common thread among former Wurtsmith personnel and their families.

Cindi and Lawrence Ashbeck were stationed at Wurtsmith Air Force Base from 1986 to 1993. The couple and their children have suffered multiple health problems they think are linked to drinking contaminated water on the base.

Cindi and Lawrence Ashbeck of Manitowac, Wisconsin, were stationed at Wurtsmith from 1986 to 1993, when the base closed amid an armed forces realignment after the Cold War.

Even after Cindi developed hypertension and Lawrence was diagnosed with lung disease, nervous system issues and blood vessel damage, they never suspected Wurtsmith water. They didn't consider the base when their children developed asthma, spinal defects and thyroid problems.

The Ashbecks have three children. Two of them were born before Lawrence deployed for Operation Desert Storm and was potentially exposed to toxic chemicals thought to cause Gulf War Syndrome. Two children developed Hashimoto's disease, a thyroid disorder, and the other has thyroid nodules.

They all drank the water on base, which was "rusty-colored" at times, but "you don't question things under military authority," she said. "We thought that if anything was wrong, of course someone would tell us."

"It feels like we've been betrayed."

Michigan alleges a cover up

Nobody told the Ashbecks that the Air Force had spent millions since 1977 to purify base groundwater polluted by trichloroethylene (TCE), a cancer-causing industrial solvent used to wash B-52 bombers. It was reported in Michigan newspapers at the time, but those were the days before social media and the Internet extended the reach and longevity of news reports.

The state of Michigan sued the Air Force in 1979 over the contamination. The lawsuit, filed by former Michigan Attorney General Frank Kelley, alleged Air Force officials knew about the base groundwater contamination and tried to cover up the TCE presence by adding phosphates to mask the odor.

Kelley accused the Air Force of "compounding a serious pollution problem" by disregarding a joint 1978 state and EPA cleanup order. The number of people exposed to the chemicals is large. Military bases are known for significant staffing turnover. At the start of 1985, Wurtsmith maintained an $80 million annual payroll with 3,600 military and civilian personnel.

The Air Force settled the case in 1980 and installed groundwater extraction and treatment systems to capture TCE and spilled jet fuel. In 1997, the base, amid redevelopment, connected to municipal water from the Huron Shore Regional Utility Authority, which provides water in Oscoda Township.

Under the right conditions, cleanup experts say a gallon of spilled TCE can create a groundwater plume a mile long. At Wurtsmith and other military bases, the solvent was used to clean planes after missions. Investigators say it was also "standard practice" to dump TCE drums in adjacent wetland areas. The chemical contaminated the Au Sable River and Lake Huron.

The EPA says drinking TCE-laced water can affect a person's liver, kidneys, immune and endocrine systems. The chemical is believed to cause cancers.

Other contaminants in the groundwater at Wurtsmith, according to a 2001 federal review, include benzene, chloroform, dichlorobromomethane, 1,2-dichloroethylene, 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane, and dibromochloromethane.

Chemical pollution legacies

Sarah Cergnul, 36, of Manton, doesn't know exactly what her parents were exposed to in the Air Force, but she's dealt with it her entire life.

Cergnul was born premature in 1979 and has been in-and-out of hospitals ever since. At age 9, she developed a hernia and later found out she had an ectopic kidney on her right side. Her left kidney has stones and barely works.

Somehow, she managed to bear children despite having a tipped uterus. Other family members are also suffering reproductive problems.

Her father, an airplane refueler stationed at Wurtsmith in 1974, died of a heart attack in 2004. The family lived on Virginia Street in Oscoda and always figured his time in Vietnam had something to do with their health problems, but can't confirm it. They were told his discharge records were destroyed in a fire.

Cergnul doesn't even bother going to the hospital anymore during bouts of pain. Too many years of being "looked at like you're an alien" because the doctors can't figure out what's wrong have left her weary and frustrated.

"Now that this has come up about the water in Oscoda, it makes perfect sense."

Bonita J. Carter, 59, was stationed at Wurtsmith from 1975 to 1979 as a B-52 crew chief and remembers the water being a hush-hush subject. The scuttlebutt at the time was underground fuel tanks were leaking, she said. She coped by drinking lots of beer and soda.

She recalled industrial degreasers being washed into the grass, not barreled for disposal. "There was nothing to contain the stuff, like they do nowadays."

Carter was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012 and has suffered terrible headaches for decades. She's has sought help through the Department of Veterans Affairs, but there is much paperwork and hoops to jump through.

Today, Carter lives in Belleville, Ill., near Scott Air Force Base. She's not taking any more chances with the local water, though. It's bottled water for everything. "Even my cats drink it."

Michael Bussey was stationed at Wurtsmith Air Force Base from 1989 to 1992 and worked on the flight line as a senior airman.

Michael Bussey's experience with the VA hasn't been great, either. Bussey, 49, was stationed at Wurtsmith from 1989 to 1992. Today, he's battling neuropathy, which causes limb pain, weakness and numbness. That's in addition to skin problems, hypertension and other ailments.

The VA doctors want to diagnose him with diabetes, but his hemoglobin tests "have never been near diabetic levels," Bussey said. He's sought a lawyer to appeal a disability benefits denial for his neuropathy.

Bussey worked on the flight line at Wurtsmith as a senior airman. He remembers using a lot of methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), a colorless solvent used to clean B-52 ejection seats. The chemical was stored in a can and spills were cleaned up with paper towels. At the time, there was little concern.

"No one said, 'Hey, you need to worry about this,'" he said. "It was part of everyday life. You did your duty."

No health study for Wurtsmith

Bussey, Ashbeck, Carter, Cergnul and more than a 100 other Wurtsmith veterans started connecting with each other online this year through a new Facebook group started to commiserate and share information about other military bases with clusters of veterans who've developed strange ailments.

Among polluted bases, the highest-profile example is Camp LeJeune, a U.S. Marine Corps base in North Carolina. But more than 600 military installations are now dealing with some kind of PFC problem related to fire-fighting foam and almost every base used TCE. George Air Force Base in California, Davis-Monthan Base in Arizona, Pease Air National Guard Base in New Hampshire and Kadena Air Base in Japan are all linked to toxic pollution of some sort.

For Wurtsmith veterans, the VA does not take disability claims blaming illnesses on contamination at face value. According to the VA, claims are evaluated case-by-case. Whereas Vietnam veterans are simply presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange, Wurtsmith veterans must present medical evidence that links their disability claim to base pollution.

It's a high bar that few have the energy to mount.

Proving a definitive link between Wurtsmith pollution and the servicemen and Oscoda locals suffering health problems is difficult because neither Michigan nor U.S. officials have conducted a comprehensive epidemiological study on the effects of TCE, PFCs or any of the other pollutants under the base.

Senior Airman Allen Stoddard, 60th Civil Engineer Squadron, blows a small sea of fire retardant foam that was unintentionally released in an aircraft hangar at Travis Air Force Base, Calif., Sept. 24, 2013.

The closest thing to it was a 2001 Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) assessment of health risks posed by TCE pollution (developed nine years before the PFC problem was even discovered).

In the review, the agency said TCE exposure "may have been high enough to pose health hazards to people" using the main base water prior to 1980. However, because the base was connected to municipal water in 1997, along with much of the township, "groundwater treatment systems and groundwater-use restriction should prevent future health hazards from resulting."

Michigan officials say it's the federal government's responsibility to conduct a health study, although there's definitely interest. Air Force spokespeople have previously said study inquires are "questions for the state."

Inquiries to the Centers for Disease Control were not immediately returned.

It's something of a moot point for Robert Payne.

A 20-year military veteran stationed at Wurtsmith as a forecaster from 1976-78, Payne, who lives on Bossier City, La., was diagnosed in 2014 with stage 4 sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma, a rare kidney cancer. Today, he's living on borrowed time.

He was stationed at other Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases during this Air Force tenure. Whether his cancer came from exposure in the service or old age, he's not sure. But he knows there's a way to find out.

The government knows who was stationed at Wurtsmith, when they were there, where they lived and what the contamination was in those areas, he said. An epidemiological study needs to be done.

"I'm interested in them finding out for real; not only for the airmen there but the kids and spouses," Payne said. "They were all exposed."

Garret Ellison covers government, environment & the Great Lakes for MLive Media Group. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram