Three UK military bases are set to be investigated amid growing fears that they are leaking toxic “forever chemicals” into drinking water supplies and vulnerable environmental sites.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed it will examine RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon, and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire. Concerns about these sites arose after they were flagged by a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) to locate and prioritise potential pollution threats.
RAF Marham and AAC Middle Wallop sit within designated drinking water safeguard zones, while RM Chivenor is situated alongside protected shellfish waters, a special conservation area, and the River Taw — a vital salmon habitat.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a large group of man-made chemicals used extensively in firefighting foams, industrial processes, and a range of everyday products like waterproof clothing, non-stick cookware, cosmetics, and food packaging. They are called “forever chemicals” because they degrade very slowly, persisting in the environment for decades. PFAS have been detected in soil and water systems worldwide, and certain compounds are known to accumulate in the human body, posing risks of cancer, immune dysfunction, and reproductive issues.
Military airfields have long relied on firefighting foams rich in PFAS. Chemicals such as PFOS, PFOA, and PFHxS — now banned due to links to serious health problems — were commonly used and remain in the environment despite restrictions.
According to Professor Hans Peter Arp of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, it would be unsurprising to find PFAS contamination at UK military bases.
“Most, if not all, military bases in Europe and around the world have used vast quantities of firefighting foams that contain PFAS,” he said. “They now have substantial PFAS concentrations in the soil and groundwater beneath them, as well as soaked into the concrete of their buildings.”
He warned that, without urgent local remediation efforts, the pollution could continue for “decades to centuries.”
“These PFAS that are leaching now likely took several decades to get there. There are more PFAS to come.”
Meanwhile, the Environmental Audit Committee recently launched an inquiry into the extent of PFAS contamination and the current regulatory response across the UK. Scientists and campaigners warn that unless the full scale of pollution is properly addressed, both environmental and public health threats will only worsen.
Alex Ford, professor of biology at the University of Portsmouth, said: “The EA has now identified thousands of high-risk sites around the UK with elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds. These forever chemicals are being detected in our soils, rivers, groundwater, our wildlife – and us.
“It is very worrying to hear PFAS is being detected … close to drinking water sources. The quicker we get this large family of chemicals banned the better, as their legacy will outlive everybody alive today.”
Ford noted that clean-up costs could reach billions of pounds and argued that chemical manufacturers should bear the financial burden.
Professor Crispin Halsall, an environmental chemist at Lancaster University, stressed the urgent need for greater transparency and collaboration to tackle the crisis.
“The MoD shouldn’t try to hide things. They should come clean and set up monitoring,” he said.
Compared to the US, the UK is lagging in monitoring and addressing PFAS pollution. In America, billions of dollars have been allocated to testing and cleaning up contaminated military sites. For instance, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Army launched a joint initiative in July to test private drinking water wells near army bases — a scale of action only recently being considered in the UK.
The human toll of PFAS exposure is becoming increasingly evident. Brad Creacey, a former US Air Force firefighter, trained for years using aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) on bases across the US and Europe. During training exercises, he and his colleagues would ignite contaminated jet fuel and extinguish it using PFAS-laden foams, often wearing old, foam-soaked gear that was rarely cleaned. Creacey recalls even being sprayed for fun on occasion.
Decades after his service, blood tests showed that Creacey still had elevated PFOS levels. He has since been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Hashimoto’s disease, high cholesterol, and chronic fatigue.
“We’ve taken on too much of a lackadaisical attitude about this contamination,” he said. “Unless this is taken seriously, we’re doomed.”
Today, he is seeking compensation through the US Department of Veterans Affairs and is also part of a lawsuit against chemical giants 3M and DuPont.
In the UK, Pete Thompson, a former Royal Air Force firefighter, shared similar experiences. While serving at various airbases including RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, he routinely used firefighting foams during training and equipment testing — often spraying them directly onto open grass fields without any environmental containment.
“We used the foam in the back of what was called a TACR 1 – basically a Land Rover with a 450-litre tank of premixed foam on the back. Every six months we had to do a production test to prove that the system worked. That production test we just produced on to the grass … there was no way of stopping it going anywhere other than just draining in through the ground.
The MoD is currently collaborating with the EA to evaluate its sites, and discussions are underway about restricting PFAS use in firefighting foams. However, military sites are only one part of the problem. Commercial airports, firefighting training centres, manufacturing plants, landfills, paper mills, and metal plating operations are also known sources of PFAS contamination.
An EA spokesperson said: “The global science on PFAS is evolving rapidly, and we are undertaking a multi-year programme to better understand sources of PFAS pollution in England. We have developed a risk screening approach to identify potential sources of PFAS pollution and prioritise the sites for further investigation. We have used this tool to assist the MoD in developing its programme of voluntary investigations and risk assessments.”
A government spokesperson said: “There is no evidence that drinking water from our taps exceeds the safe levels of PFAS, as set out by the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
“Our rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan will look at the risks posed by PFAS and how best to tackle them to deliver our legally binding targets to save nature.”
Under UK guidelines, the threshold for 48 types of PFAS in drinking water is 0.1 micrograms per litre, or 100 nanograms per litre.
Earlier this year, Watershed Investigations revealed MoD documents suggesting that certain RAF bases could be significant hotspots of PFAS pollution. In 2022, it was reported that Duxford airfield — a former RAF site now managed by the Imperial War Museum — had likely contaminated drinking water in South Cambridgeshire with PFOS. The site is now under official investigation by the EA.
Patrick Byrne, professor of water science at Liverpool John Moores University, warned that current monitoring efforts are barely scratching the surface.
“We’re at the tip of the iceberg. We’re only monitoring a handful of PFAS compounds. There are many others we don’t yet fully understand or detect.
“There are tests that measure the total PFAS load in water, and we’re finding huge discrepancies between those results and the levels of individual compounds. That tells us there’s a lot more PFAS in the environment than we know.”
Even where testing is under way, labs are overwhelmed. “The Environment Agency’s lab is inundated. Private labs can’t keep up either,” he said. “Analytical technology is improving fast – but we’re racing to keep pace.”
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