The Department of Defense has discreetly postponed its critical efforts to clean up hazardous ‘forever chemicals’ (PFAS) at close to 140 military sites nationwide. This revelation comes from a recent analysis of a publicly posted list by The New York Times.
For decades, the Pentagon was a primary consumer of these persistent chemicals, known as PFAS, which were a vital component of firefighting foam. Military bases routinely used this foam in training exercises, dousing jet-fuel fires, only for the chemicals to seep into the surrounding soil and precious groundwater supplies.
By 2017, communities near these installations began reporting alarming concentrations of PFAS in their drinking water. Mounting scientific research has since unequivocally linked PFAS exposure to severe health risks, including various cancers, developmental problems in children, and fertility complications.
This newly unveiled timeline, dated March and released without formal announcement, indicates that the cleanup at some military locations could be set back by almost a decade. These varying delays represent a substantial shift from the Pentagon’s previous schedule, which was established just three months prior, in December 2024, towards the end of the Biden administration.
The Department of Defense, now controversially rebranded as the ‘Department of War’ by the Trump administration, remained unresponsive to inquiries for comment regarding these significant delays.
This revised schedule emerges at a time when funding for toxic site cleanups faces potential cuts, even as the military grapples with an overwhelming contamination crisis. Since 2017, the Defense Department has allocated $2.6 billion solely to assess the contamination’s scope, and in the most severely affected areas, it has provided clean drinking water to residents.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, earn their moniker ‘forever chemicals’ due to their extreme persistence in the environment. The Defense Department previously acknowledged that a comprehensive cleanup, which has yet to truly commence, would demand years of effort and billions of dollars.
Now, countless communities face the prospect of waiting even longer for relief.
An image shows three firefighters in silver protective gear battling a towering wall of orange flames with a powerful hose. This scene illustrates how ‘forever chemicals’ were used in firefighting foam during a 2012 training exercise at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, one of many locations where groundwater has since become contaminated. Credit: Stocktrek Images, via Getty Images
These delays primarily impact the preparatory stages crucial before any actual remediation can start. This includes vital work like identifying the most effective cleanup strategies, a process that itself spans several years. Consequently, at some sites, environmental restoration may not even commence until at least 2039, as per the updated timetable.
The Pentagon’s list reveals that preparatory work has been deferred for approximately a quarter of the nearly 600 military sites confirmed to have PFAS contamination. On average, this pushes back operations at these locations by about five years compared to the schedule set in December 2024.
Community leaders adjacent to these contaminated military sites expressed surprise and frustration, stating they were not informed of these changes.
Kristen Mello, a city councilor in Westfield, Mass., near the Barnes Air National Guard Base, voiced her dismay. “There’s been no discussion of a delay,” stated Ms. Mello, a chemist who grew up close to the base where her father served as a lieutenant colonel. She added, “It’s very upsetting and depressing that we haven’t had clearer communications.”
Another image depicts the Pentagon building, symbolizing the military’s responsibility. Its caption notes that the new military timeline could delay PFAS cleanup by nearly a decade in some cases. Credit: Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
These postponements are particularly troubling given that the proposed National Defense Authorization Act for 2026 aims to drastically reduce funding for toxic site cleanups. Furthermore, the act could reverse the existing ban on purchasing and using PFAS firefighting foam, raising serious alarms about potential new releases of these harmful chemicals into the environment.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is currently facing intense scrutiny for his proposed budget cuts to the Pentagon. Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and a prominent member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has openly questioned if Hegseth’s “rushed, arbitrary strategy” might, in fact, compromise national security.
Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat also on the Senate Armed Services Committee, emphatically stated that communities “are sick and tired of roadblocks, inaction, red tape and further delays.” She stressed that “This is not a partisan issue, and President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have no excuse here.”
The immense scale of the required cleanup is a formidable challenge. A recent Government Accountability Office report this year highlighted that Defense officials found the sheer number of installations requiring PFAS contamination assessment across the nation to be “overwhelming.”
Officials admitted to having sparse information on the exact locations of PFAS use at each site, necessitating extensive testing across entire installations, some spanning hundreds of thousands of acres.
Moreover, the report noted the absence of a universally available technology capable of swiftly and completely eradicating PFAS contamination from soil and water. Current methods are acknowledged as imperfect and labor-intensive. For groundwater remediation, the process involves extracting water, filtering out contaminants, and then reinjecting the treated water back into the ground.
During the Biden administration, the Environmental Protection Agency introduced stricter limits on PFAS levels in drinking water, aiming to bolster public health protection. These new regulations effectively raised the standard for the Defense Department’s cleanup operations, possibly adding to the current delays.
Federal estimates suggest that a full cleanup of PFAS at contaminated military sites will span decades and incur annual costs of nearly $7 billion. This staggering figure represents a 1,500 percent increase in just three years, as the true scale of the contamination becomes increasingly apparent, according to the GAO report.
Alissa H. Czyz, director of defense capabilities and management at the Government Accountability Office, characterized the situation in an interview: “It’s a very long-term process, and there’s just so much uncertainty. This is going to be a massive effort.”
Czyz warned that even the current cost projections might be underestimated. The report ultimately concludes that the cleanup could take anywhere from years to a full century to complete, and it strongly advised the Defense Department to offer more detailed and transparent information to Congress regarding the entire process.
She further noted, “We understand that the D.O.D. is still trying to get a handle on what would be involved. But they haven’t really been transparent with Congress about just how much this could potentially cost.”
In response, a pending House bill aims to mandate that the Secretary of Defense provide annual updates to Congress on PFAS funding allocations and cleanup progress.
Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Michigan Democrat, emphasized the long-standing frustration: “Communities impacted by PFAS chemicals have been waiting decades for cleanup, and they’ve been kept in the dark. When cleanup timelines change, residents deserve to know.”
For countless communities, the urgent need for cleanup grows with each passing day.
Just last month, New Mexico’s environmental regulator published a study revealing elevated PFAS levels in the bloodstreams of individuals residing or working near the Cannon Air Force Base, located south of Clovis, N.M. For decades, this base routinely employed PFAS-containing firefighting foam in training drills and during aircraft fires, leading to significant contamination of local drinking water.
It’s worth noting that these same chemicals are also found in numerous consumer products, including nonstick cookware, rainproof apparel, stain-resistant carpets, and even dental floss.
Back in 2019, New Mexico initiated legal action against the U.S. Air Force, demanding that the federal government take responsibility for cleaning up PFAS contamination from military bases within the state and compensate for damages to its natural resources and private property.
According to the latest Pentagon records, the cleanup efforts specifically at Cannon Air Force Base have been delayed by nearly six years.
James Kenney, secretary of New Mexico’s environment department, expressed deep concern in an interview, stating, “The longer they delay in cleanup, the greater the impacts to New Mexico’s water, and to New Mexicans.”
The Defense Department’s protracted timelines are also impacting companies poised to assist in the remediation efforts. Randol Aikin, CEO of Remedy, a California startup, is developing an innovative method to eradicate PFAS from soil and is among those affected.
His company is currently engaged in a DOD certification program for novel technologies. Aikin emphasized, “As a technology start-up, we’re really sensitive to timing.”
At the Barnes Air National Guard Base, a site responsible for contaminating Westfield, Massachusetts’s water supply, the Department of Defense did install water treatment systems in 2020 to commence PFAS removal from groundwater.
Despite these initial steps, Ms. Mello noted that the new, extended timeline was conspicuously absent from discussions during the Defense Department’s July meeting with a local cleanup advisory board. Nevertheless, she acknowledged the monumental task confronting the military.
“We understand that an enormous environmental disaster happened here,” Ms. Mello conceded, adding her skepticism: “I’m not even sure that with six more years, they’re going to figure out how to do this.”