How Military Pollution Could Cause The Next Water Crisis
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- The United States military's use of a firefighting foam, with the intention to save lives, could turn out to have dire consequences for those who handled it and people who live nearby. PFAS, short for per- or poly-fluoroalkyl substances, have seeped into the groundwater and at times spread into drinking water by way of firefighting foam runoff. Now, communities across the country are wondering what PFAS-contaminated water means for their health, their homes and who's responsible to clean it all up.
The Department of Defense had identified 401 military sites that could be contaminated with the toxic compounds, known as PFAS, as of August 2017. The Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University have mapped at least 712 documented cases of PFAS contamination across 49 states, as of July 2019. That map includes contamination on military bases along with industrial plants, commercial airports and firefighting training sites.
PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are found at high levels in a concentrate for a firefighting foam called AFFF, or aqueous film forming foam, which has seeped into groundwater and at times tainted drinking water. The Environmental Working Group estimates more than 100 million Americans could be drinking tap water contaminated with PFAS.
Dubbed “the forever chemical,” PFAS don’t naturally break down in the environment, which explains why some water sources are still contaminated from AFFF use decades ago.
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How Military Pollution Could Cause The Next US Water Crisis
Wow real investigative stories, not just twitter feeds, well done work.
totally agree!
Best reporting CNBC has done for the people in a long time
CNBC cranking out real quality content lately...reminds me of vice a bit
Liam Smith vive quit dropping bangers
Can't wait to see the governments and presidents face when their world falls apart 😂
Vice’s bias shows in almost everything they do.. comparison to CNBC is dumb.
Lol I though the same thing when I saw this video on my homepage😂
Better than vice imo
Anyone else wondering how many of the diseases affecting the the population are a result of man-made actions (government/military or corporations)?
Mark Youneva Honestly not many.....
I wonder about this all the time! I don’t understand why so many other people aren’t concerned.
@@crunch9876 Do you work in the medical or epidemiology fields? I am no conspiracy theorist but I think there are research and development that are done for the public good but sometimes things can back fire or get out of control. I always wondered how something as powerful as the HIV virus which leads to AIDS could have been created in nature. It seems like the perfect biological weapon that a government could have created. Ebola is another.
HIV was a CIA “fake take” that still has its reports relating to them testing AIDs in Africa to see how they fight it since most of Africa and its children have v weak immune systems :(
Trust the government and military??? NEVER!!!!
Got that right
Trump ; yeet trust me
MORE OF THIS!!!!!
This is the content people want!
Keep it up pls, love these deep dives.
Truth Bombz good ass prana
NBC Is Getting Better
Priyanka Upadhyay u very hot.
U frm Delhi ,??
@@avdeshalvaraz7721
She is cold
@@avdeshalvaraz7721 this isn't tinder brotha
They have been doing a lot better. I think that their content is probably the best geared for youtube out of all the major news networks. Other news sites just put clips from their tv shows.
@@avdeshalvaraz7721 chill
The US government is out of control. At this point I feel we're too far gone to recover.
Sounds very much like a documentary I had made on nuclear pollution and saw others while researching. So I guess anytime an artificial chemical compound is made, chances are it would mess the environment
Everything is a chemical.
Jason Tempel If we use Teflon, we probably are.
Jason Tempel I’m just sick of the chemicals are scary jargon because it’s nonspecific and leads to fear mongering around effective ingredients and preservatives. Like honestly companies that capitalize on this can go spend an eternity squeezing pus out of a boob abcess.
liar
Finally a CNBC video that actually provides useful info and doesn't just defend corporations.
Which videos were defending corporations?
@@VinceroAlpha Goldman Sachs video was super biased toward them, complimented them a lot
@@versacepockets what did you think where compliments? I'm genuinely curious about how you saw it.
This is crazy, put together very well!
Thousands of Vietnam veterans struggling from consequences of Agent Orange,,,,
🙏
The best part about Canadian Military is that they aren't required to track any environmental damage they cause if it happened outside of Canada! So our Navy has naturally never had an oil spill...
As a Driller ... I can tell you pfas is evvvvvvvvverywhere , I've seen it travel up to 11 miles away or farther and it doesn't stop it will keep traveling into groundwater miles and miles away
Oh great. All of our military ships use AFFF, we're all required to use it, and we've all been sprayed with it. No one's ever mentioned it's any worse than soap...
This is the quality content we appreciate
Regarding Australia's military changing to a safer alternative chemical. The local ponds, lakes and basins here have already been contaminated, so the damage has already been done. We noticed that a couple of years ago, the military base placed signs not to fish/swim in local still water ponds and lakes. It wasn't until 6 months later, I read in the news that firefighting contaminates have been polluting and accumulating in the water for decades! They reported that local residents who have lived there for decades were developing cancer.
There's people who served in the Air Force years ago who, when they saw this report, scheduled a visit to the VA this week
All branches of the military used AFFF to fight fires. I've been soaked to the skin in it. USN
So who covers deactivated US based overseas, in say the UK, where these firefighting activities were undertaken by USAF?
Collect the water and spray it back into the base
It would depend if there was contamination. Water contamination is very difficult to determine. In Ohio ODNR forces oil and gas operators to sample all water sources with in 2000 feet of a well and make the results public. That way any issues come up we have a base line and can easily see if there is contamination.
Who cares it is the shithole UK
It's not the military, but it's contractors, that have financial liability. Go there, Canada. Retired attorneys, here you go. It's on a platter for you.
Nah its the companies that created these compounds, like DuPont chemical, they should be held liable for all damages.
@@kylej4258 That's what I said.
Wow I used to be In Camp Pendleton and I knew the water tasted weird
Kevin Gil distilled water detox
I know this is what is what caused my disease. How does one get help!?
No Body half truths from mercola turn anyone into a disinfo agent
Growing up in Oscoda, being a airman's child... we were always told to limit our time in lake ven ettan and do not eat anything out of it... they told us cuz of the airforce letting chemicals into the lake. what i'd really like to know.. if it was common knowlege in 1995 then why was in not untill after 2010 that ppl were told not to drink the ground water
FLINT STILL HAS A WATER CRISIS
The stuff companies and governments bury and otherwise release in the environment is far underestimated. There are countless chemicals that are nothing like household chemicals, very few are recovered or recycled. They are released into water, air or soil. Once it's out there, it's out there and like they say cannot be broken down organically.
$2 Billion to clean up with a $750 Billion annual Military Budget. Perhaps we should reverse the numbers $750 Billion for cleanup and $2 Billion for Military and fight for the future vs fighting for dominance ............. Seeing a healthy human being is becoming a rare event.
Agree
803 Mastiff you are stupid
Watching this while cooking breakfast with my PFAS/ Teflon pan.
I have a degree in Public Health and struggle to find employment yet are so many health concerns that aren’t being addressed properly. It’sI won’t give up trying to improve population health.
There are many things that should not be partisan / political issue, and health environment is one of them 😑😑😑 sadly this kind of problem happend almost anywhere..
Profits over human health in the US? No way... Who wouldve thought...
For the record, if 190 million is the base total for the clean up (which it's clearly not since the speaker said they'd need that much _more_), it will cost approximately (but probably more than) 76.7 *billion* to clean up. Just wow.
*TOXIC AFFF*
So the list of water contamination is:
Microplastics
PFAS
Oil
Nuclear waste
Way way way more lol
@@mattlane2282 Of course it is way more, but lately these are the things that have been hammered a lot
Perfluorate molecules PFA are primarily coming from hazardous waste burners in manufacture process and burning VX nerve agent stockpile. There is no form of halogenated vinyl and halogenated carbon that can be said to be safe to manufacture, use or dispose. The toxicity is the functional group.
The only solution to the global effects of manufacture use and stockpile burning and dissipating of halogenated vinyl and halogenated carbon pollution is not to manufacture use or burn halogenated vinyl and halogenated carbon of any kind
One day you’ll see commercials about people being poisoned by this, the same way you see asbestos caused mesothelioma commercials today.
I thought there was a regulatory trigger to require PFAS warnings. They happen from time to time here in some Michigan communities. Ann Arbor had a few "no fish" warnings last year. I live a little ways away from Ann Arbor and I know nearby communities warn of PFAS plumes, but I guess I can't rely on local governments to tell me if my water is safe or not anymore.
They need to declare an emergency over this. Relocate people if they can't guarantee their health and safety after this.
It honestly sounds like half the responsibility lies with the manufacturer for not doing sufficient testing, and the other half for the military considering their negligent use.
This is what I call journalism!
...and we're expected to trust that the government knows what's good for us. It's a shame that so many service personnel have been treated as human guinea pigs. Short sighted actions have lead to a serious issue for us all and generations to come.
It's also used on pan's and raincoats, it's not only used as foam.
"It's not important to me because it doesn't affect me or my immediate family right now. I'm sure the government will clean this up. It's obviously not that serious because I don't see it on the nightly news." -we all know this person😒
Deadass people should’ve researched the consequences and effects of using these chemicals before actually using it on the environment ,, I hate how our country is like this
When the last pure food and water are gone man will realize you can t eat or drink money
Wow, this happened near my house in Pennsylvania. Same foam, caused cancer here.
I feel like there are a LOT of explanations but I've seen that "shore foam" in a bunch of places. So I have a reasonable suspicion that it could be PFAS accumulated.
remember in Navy boot camp back in the mid 70's training in firefighting we had to drink a cup of the foam telling us that it was drinkable if necessary.
We studied this in my chemistry class.
Aden Godwin Yeah. That is why we learn the most basic chemistry in High school so that we use materials that we have an idea how it is
Hawaii December 2021 U.S Navy has contaminated the natives water. Didn't acknowledge till at least 1 week later while in the meantime people fell ill and some pets died. They had many signs and concerns brought to their attention but still delayed it.
Great work! Thanks for well documented and edited video!
saying you should not drink more than 70 parts per trillion (ppt) is like saying you should drink a maximum of 5% Alcohol in your lifetime. Ppt is just like per cent, so it's a relative scale which can be used to set limits on how contaminated drinking water is allowed to be. However if you want a limit on how much you can safely consume you'd need an absolute scale (basically saying you can drink x kg of 70ppt contaminated water = x*70*10^-9kg)
As a US Veteran and an Engineer in the water treatment market, this truly saddens me. I'll do everything I can to put new technology in place to remove PFAS from our drinking water and serve the American people!
Ever heard of Firerein's Eco-gel? It's a USDA certified, 100% biobased, fire suppressant. It's not toxic.
I just moved to Louisiana and staid at the Air Force base for 2 weeks and I noticed right away that there was something wrong with the water and being pregnant I worried a lot about what’s in it. Vegas water isn’t the best in the US but there’s something clearly wrong in Louisiana
Excellent video - I just wish they had continued the "few drops in an Olympic sized swimming pool" analogy to the other amounts given - it would have helped to compare.
Holy shit...did you see all the dots in Michigan? 1:07 ...I'm from Michigan and travel around the whole state for work and vacations...that's scary stuff
Great reporting
Wow we finally made the news for something..amazing
Let's not forget contaminated water at Camp Lejeune that caused service members & their dependents 15 different cancers!!
And people do nothing
What a nightmare!
I hope they speak on the contamination in Beaufort SC also
Didn't expect this from CNBC ...
"I didn't sign up to be poisoned, i signed up to serve my country" "cough cough" agent orange during Vietnam lol
Very Good!.
Then clowns thank them for poisoning the community for their so called service.
Not me. I call out those stupid enough to join the military to their faces. Even my brother when he joined the Marines.
I've never understood that kind of obsession or adoration of some Americans to soldiers 😕
Damn, worse than asbestos
70 parts per trillion
Homeopathy: wow, that's some powerful stuff.
In the Navy, we were told that you could drink AFFF a a survival food....
Somebody was pulling your leg.
“In another video...” they did this with the oil video too and nothing was ever released.
Happened in Fountain Colorado. Bunch of people died here.
Tyco & Chemguard should pay significant amounts. The military probably has certain insurance contracts and should be able to claim from those insurance companies. All of this would limit any direct hit to taxpayers.
None of those vids shown here were using foam lol. And my training center controls all run-off and it's then treated -Firefighter
Modern facilities aren't an issue. Today's activities are much better controlled. It is the same with oil and gas as well as landfills. New facilities are safe, monitored and designed to protect the environment. Facilities I have worked at were built in the 40's. They dumped tons of chemicals, vented gasses and polluted water. Older facilities pose the risks.
In 2019:
Water
Air
Food...
It’s all being poisoned.
Sad, very sad.
Oh we screwed, I feel like the only immediate solution I can do for myself is put a filter on my own water supply
Did anyone notice that Venezuelan flag just hanging about on that doctor's office window?
Maybe his wife is from there, who knows and its really not important.
So basically our country's sick and there's nothing that anyone can so about it because there's bureaucracy and ignorance when it's basically a matter of national security?
I know Bucky Bailey from when I lived in Virginia, amazing guy.
they call this 'total war'
I know the water at Great Lakes was contaminated. When the water hit my skin I knew I couldn’t drink that water.
All the headlines about "crisis", if factual, will eventually merge together into "catastrophe"...
I was there back when I was in the Navy in the 90’s, when I went to DC - Damage Control Fire Fighting 🔥 School several times. Both at Great Lakes, IL and in San Diego, CA. As for fighting fires, AFFF was awesome at smothering and putting out fires 🔥. Health issues related to its contamination of drinking water sources, well that’s another story and the very obvious one in the video. Anyway, this stuff is all over the oceans of the world as well, though it be very diluted in concentration in the oceans of the world combined. Always and no matter where you live, do your self a favor and put a Under-sink RO-Reverse Osmosis System on your Home Kitchen drinking water, you’ll thank me one day.
RO... you have anything showing it filters this out? lol
It works and saves real lives. 1 real life is worth much more than a potential illness.
saving 1 life is worth hurting a million others? LOL are you clueless...
@@mattlane2282 potentiality v reality - yes. Millions are not hurt. May even be no one is hurt.
They are putting HORMONES in the water that is turning our Frogs Gay... Hahaha
There's so many dots in Michigan, my home 😰
Here is a link to the interactive map to see if your home is affected...www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2019_pfas_contamination/map/
NBC - It would be nice if you guys added links to this stuff in your video description.
They are poisoning your food air too
But we can’t step on the toes of those big defenses contractors!
I swear trump said he is the most patriotic person yet still lets this happen to is country .
Very important environmental topic regarding firefighting chemical that too much of it leaked into important natural water sources.
I think it will take some time before something solid is developed due to bureaucracy
NBC getting better what black magic is this
This is documentary NBC, not MSM news NBC. Sorry, your dreams aren't coming true.
@@takipsilim0 :(
Now this video cancels my plans to visit USA in future by saving money
Not just bases in the USA. There's towns all over Australia with poison water and probably in many other countries.
Same problem in oscoda Michigan. By the au sable river.
pollution hurts you and the enemy both. not pure and yet unbiased not take sides
what about what Monsanto did?
Well its not the first time national security and money has trumped public health.
Ever see 90s flick??. "Tank girl" were almost there 💜🖖
And have they not used these chemicals at all airports like Stapelton, O'hare or Kennedy?
This is presented as though there was a coverup at the government level, but it doesn't really seem like that. It seems like they now know it's a problem and are going through the steps to fix it. Let's hope that is the case and they do what's right.
The coverup status of corporations is a bit more concerning.
Highway to the, Zone of Concern.
Of course JB MDL in NJ is listed. I'm about 12 miles from there. Wonder if that's another reason why people are so concerned with the Trenton water .. probably not.
Where's the Navy at with a PFOS-free, fire suppressant replacement?