Defence was warned about forever chemicals. They kept it quiet for three decades

“The Commonwealth should dispose of its wastes properly and there is evidence that there is increasing concern, both within Commonwealth circles and by other people, particularly environmentalists, with the level of treatment provided by the Commonwealth.”

It took 27 years after that minute was written for Defence to begin investigating the extent of firefighting pollution across its bases in 2013. Between 2014 and 2018, it began alerting affected community members, many of whom were drinking contaminated water and consuming contaminated produce until that point.

Decades earlier, in the 1990s, Defence had taken steps to stop its personnel drinking water contaminated with the chemicals over concerns about their health, the documents show.

Senior naval staff noted that “filtration of AFFF, to ensure water is potable [drinkable] for trainee’s health, is at the leading edge of current technology” and “a toxin-free alternative to AFFF as a training aid in fire fighting is also being sought”.

The documents raise serious questions about the narrative of events Defence officials gave to a parliamentary inquiry in 2018 when they were grilled about when they discovered the contamination problem.

An official said there was no evidence the foam was particularly dangerous to the environment or human health in 2000 and that Defence did not begin to understand it was an environmental contaminant until 2003.

The official said he didn’t think Defence appreciated that the chemicals were leaving its land until well after 2004.

“We started to appreciate that much later on,” he said.

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAS) were the key ingredient in firefighting foam sold by Wall Street giant 3M to Australia’s Defence force from the 1970s until 2000, when the company announced it would abandon their manufacture.

Authorities in the United States and Europe recognise that PFAS may cause cancer, suppress the immune system, raise cholesterol and cause reproductive problems and hormonal disruption but Australia’s Department of Health says there is “limited to no evidence” they cause disease.

On Friday, 3M reached a $US10.3 billion settlement ($15.4 billion) with water providers across the United States that have found the forever chemicals in their drinking water. It was the largest drinking water settlement in American history, attorneys claimed.

The chemicals, which do not break down in the environment, are present in an array of consumer products such as make-up and food packaging and are expected to be found in the blood of most Australians.

Ground zero

Documents held by the National Archives of Australia indicate ground zero for the unfolding contamination scandal was an Aboriginal community living in the shadow of the HMAS Creswell naval base at Jervis Bay, three hours south of Sydney.

In 1981, when the Department of Housing and Construction was upgrading fire training facilities at the base, it discovered firefighting foam waste flowing towards the village of Wreck Bay

“Currently liquid wastes containing AFFF from the fire training exercises are allowed to discharge over the surface of adjacent land,” said a bureaucrat in a letter to the then-secretary of Defence.

“The [foam] wastes have penetrated a considerable distance and have almost reached the Aboriginal settlement.

“For environmental reasons, this situation is unacceptable and should be discontinued.”

Another 1981 file note observed the firefighting waste was “released directly onto the reserve”, an apparent reference to the Jervis Bay Nature Reserve.

At the top of the hill, Mary Creek was a sink for the Navy’s foam runoff. At the bottom, it was a sacred site, food and water source and nursery for children in the Aboriginal village. A recent investigation by this masthead has revealed they are today plagued by devastating levels of sickness and ill health.

Defence sprung into action. By the end of 1984, it had established a new fire training ground, designed to stop the foam from draining into Mary Creek.

Instead, runoff would be captured in concrete tanks and piped to a sewage treatment plant before discharging into Jervis Bay.

However, this masthead has obtained a document under freedom of information laws from Defence’s consultants alleging the old firefighting training ground continued to be used after it was supposed to have been shut down.

“Aerial photography showed that fire training at the old site continued “for some time following the commissioning of the new facility”, the report, by Maunsell Aecom, said in 2006. “It is not known, however, what date training within this area had ceased.”

Defence’s decision to keep using the old fire training ground remains unexplained. When this masthead contacted Defence with a series of questions, it said it could not comment while the matter was before the courts.

This masthead asked whether it was because problems struck at the sewage plant soon after it began receiving the foam run-off.

In late 1986, the plant’s licence was suspended for exceeding allowable pollutant levels. Documents show there was speculation at the time it may be due to increasing use of the fire training ground and “overloading from AFFF”.

The new fire training ground also “had problems with the concrete walls of the fire pits”, a Department of Housing and Construction minute from 1986 noted.

By the mid-1990s, the Aboriginal community of Wreck Bay was growing suspicious of a problem with their water. They demanded Defence undertake sampling of Mary Creek which identified a plume of dangerous hydrocarbon pollution from fuel used as an accelerant during fire training.

Bush foods and medicines including yabbies, bracken fern and geebungs were also found to contain traces of cadmium, copper and lead.

Wreck Bay elders were invited onto the base to pinpoint where they believed drums of waste had been buried after the Navy denied knowledge of any dumping.

Elder Eric Ardler, who was on the base tour, recalled the group had stepped off the bus and could immediately smell the stench of diesel.

They were trying to show the Navy where the drums were buried when a helicopter landed on the airstrip, showering the group in dust and grit.

Ardler became emotional telling this masthead how intimidated he felt. He believed the move was deliberate to “harass us and get us off the airstrip”.

Later investigations confirmed the community’s fears, locating rusting drums of “tarry material” underneath the earth.

‘Elephants on the Bridge’

As the community sparred with base officials over the contamination, tension was mounting over the issue 200 kilometres away at Defence headquarters in Canberra.

A naval commodore in the nation’s capital lambasted his underling for failing to travel to Jervis Bay to attend a meeting about the pollution, warning it was a “political hot potato” and he was “close to losing my cool”.

In another cryptic message, he said: “This is important stuff and the need to keep the “Elephants” on the “Bridge” relaxed should not be underestimated.” [sic].

Naval officers stationed in Jervis Bay noted “mistrust and animosity” towards them at a series of confrontational meetings with the community. They were fearful if they didn’t act, the story might hit the press.

“It is abundantly clear that we are no longer dealing with just hydrocarbon pollution from the fireground,” wrote the captain of HMAS Creswell in a March 1997 email update to naval headquarters in Canberra.

“If we are to keep this matter on an even keel and progressing towards satisfactory resolution rather than antagonism, which may lead to media coverage and potential court cases, we need to build up a level of trust.”

Defence agreed to remediate the hydrocarbon pollution, which was no longer posing a threat because gas was used as an accelerant instead of fuel since 1993.

The Wreck Bay community remained dubious about the extent of Defence’s testing. They hired Dr Bill Ryall, one of the state’s foremost contamination experts, to give them a second opinion.

In his August 1996 report, Ryall warned that Defence “had not established the extent of the contamination in sufficient detail” and should have tested Mary Creek for firefighting foam chemicals that may be toxic, including “fluorinated organic surfactants” – another term for PFAS.

Defence’s contractors defended their failure to test for the firefighting chemicals, arguing the foam was of secondary importance because the fuel plume was more “visually obvious” and “persistent”.

They had been informed by Defence the foam only posed a risk while it was used at the old fire training ground, which they believed had been shut down in 1984.

Only one chemical in the foam, butyl carbitol, was toxic, they added.

However, they conceded “it would not appear unreasonable” to check for the presence of the fighting chemicals during future monitoring.

In November 1996, Defence agreed to expand testing to include butyl carbitol but did not include any of the other chemicals in the foam.

In February 1997, Wreck Bay community leader Annette Brown wrote to Defence demanding Mary Creek be sampled for all chemicals in the firefighting foams identified in the material safety data sheets supplied by 3M Australia.

Two months later, Defence had obtained copies of the data sheets, which listed fluoroalkyl surfactants – another term for PFAS – as an ingredient.

This masthead had not seen any records to suggest sampling for PFAS was carried out at the time despite the community’s demands.

Mary Creek was closed to human use in 2016 after hazardous levels of the firefighting chemicals were discovered as part of a nationwide sampling program.

Stop the runoff

The firefighting foam issue might have taken a backseat in discussions with the Wreck Bay community, but it had secretly found its way onto the desks of some of the navy’s highest-ranking officials in Canberra.

By November 1996, they had decided they should abandon the use of the foam in training exercises at HMAS Creswell, only months after the Wreck Bay community’s expert warned about its potential toxicity.

Naval Support Commander Rear Admiral David Campbell drafted a letter to officers at Jervis Bay to keep them across the developments.

“The continued possibility of contamination entering the upper reaches of Mary Creek is viewed with great concern by this headquarters,” he said.

Campbell said a project was under way to capture, filter and recycle all water used in fire training at the base, with hopes it would be finished by December 1996.

“This should stop any possible contamination of the surrounding environment/landscape,” he wrote.

“A toxin-free alternative to AFFF as a training aid in fire fighting is also being sought”.

Another handwritten minute by an officer referred to as “CFACO” referred to the plan to capture the runoff.

“The whole problem of the cause and effect of pollution has been addressed by me after we were informed of the water supply problem,” they said.

“Rather than start the monitoring of runoff etc, I have chosen to stop the runoff – filter it and any other water and then reuse it.

“The downstream monitoring (which I find offensively expensive) can come later.”

The chief legal officer added a note: “concerns current polluting, not past polluting”.

There was a stumbling block to the plan. Filters were unable to remove the foam chemicals so that the recycled water was safe to drink.

A private contractor, Australia Property Group, offered a solution.

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In a February 1997 letter to naval headquarters, it said it was on the verge of securing a “world breakthrough” technology demonstrated to a “closed group of interested parties” to remove AFFF from water to less than one part per million.

“This will enable AFFF to be reintroduced into exercises which simulate actual on board fire fighting conditions,” the letter said.

“At this time this technology is under total commercial-in-confidence security arrangements due to the very high level of legal issues involved.

“Details of which will be released as soon as approval has been granted by the manufacturer,” it said, noting the Navy would be the first party to be notified in Australia.

There was confusion over the reason the water recycling project was being pursued.

Australian Property Group wrote that it was to deal with a critical shortage of water in the region and the then-captain of HMAS Creswell echoed that the project was aimed at “reducing the consumption of water, not an anti-pollution approach”.

“Filtration of AFFF, to ensure water is potable for trainee’s health, is at the leading edge of current technology and this stage of the project may not be achieved until the end of 1997,” he wrote.

In recent years, Defence has been forced to settle class actions collectively worth more than $367 million covering up to 35,000 people living near 11 of its bases.

The settlements mean Defence bureaucrats have never been interrogated in open court about when the organisation became aware of the pollution. Pivotal documents have remained under seal.

This investigation will feature in an upcoming Stan Original documentary by iKandy Films, directed by Katrina McGowan and produced by Janine Hosking, Katrina McGowan and Mat Cornwell and supported by Shark Island Foundation, Screen Australia and Screen NSW.