Pentagon’s ‘forever chemicals’ cleanup budget falls ‘dramatically’ short

Ballooning cost of cleaning up toxic PFAS contamination at military sites places service members and civilians at risk

The cost of cleaning up toxic PFAS forever chemical" contamination around hundreds of US military installations is ballooning, but Congress and the Pentagon are failing to keep pace, a development that is leaving service members and civilians indefinitely at risk, a new analysis finds.

The estimated total cost for remediating about 50 contaminated military sites has soared to $31bn, up by $3.7bn from 2016 to 2021, the last year the Department of Defense provided estimates. But its requested cleanup budget increased just $400m over the same period, according to the new report by Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit that tracks the military's PFAS pollution.