Quote:The military said Wednesday it has identified six places on an Air Force base in Colorado where firefighting foam containing toxic chemicals may have escaped into the environment and made its way into drinking water in two nearby communities.

Engineers who conducted the review recommended a follow-up investigation at Peterson Air Force Base, where the foam was used in firefighting drills and equipment tests. It contained perfluorinated compounds, or PFCs, which have been linked to prostate, kidney and testicular cancer, along with other illnesses.

The military is checking bases nationwide for possible releases of the foam into the environment.


It wasn’t immediately clear what the next phase of the investigation at Peterson would entail. The Air Force previously announced plans to drill monitoring wells and take soil samples to determine whether the chemicals were seeping into underground water from the base.


The PFCs were found in three water systems serving about 69,000 people in the city of Fountain and an unincorporated community called Security-Widefield. The chemicals have not been definitively traced to Peterson, but its proximity to the affected systems spurred the investigation.