Every year since 2016, the Ministry of Defence’s Property Agency has, through extensive studies, followed how the Armed Forces’ pollution from fire foam at the air stations has spread to a river, a stream, a lake, groundwater and nature.
Nevertheless, over the years, the agency has done nothing to stop the spread of pollution, writes Avisen Danmark and Radio4 on the basis of documents that the media have gained insight into.
The Agency has previously assessed that the PFAS pollutants can spread several kilometers. In 2019, the Agency also assessed that there is a possibility that the Agency may be ordered by environmental authorities because “PFAS content has been found in the groundwater that far exceeds the limit value”.
PFAS is a group of toxins that are harmful to human health in the body. The PFOS toxin in particular has come into the spotlight after a case in Korsør, where more than 100 citizens have been poisoned after eating beef from cattle that grazed on a contaminated field.
Although the agency in 2019 due to the risk of injunctions and compensation cases from citizens recommended itself to start cleaning up the pollution, nothing has happened since.
And it faces criticism from researchers in the field.
Philippe Grandjean, who is a professor of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, calls the agency’s actions irresponsible and says that the situation is almost a “ticking bomb”.
– This continues, and the longer the Armed Forces waits to intervene, the more the pollution spreads, and the more difficult it becomes to get rid of the pollution it all comes from, he says to Avisen Danmark.
At the country’s three current air stations – in Aalborg, Karup and Skrydstrup – PFAS has been measured in values that are between 100 and 1000 times above the limit value for groundwater.
The Ministry of Defence’s Property Agency explains its lack of intervention in a written comment to Radio4 and Avisen Danmark.
When no remedial measures have been taken by the Danish Property Agency, this is due to a resource perspective and an assessment of the effect of the known methods, according to the agency.
Source: The Nordic Page