The Defense Department has greatly underestimated the number of people exposed to dangerous levels of harmful chemicals and downplayed the exposure risk in an internal report published this year, an environmental advocacy group charges.
A Pentagon study completed in April estimated that roughly 175,000 people at 24 installations consumed water that contained per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS, during the time that it was contaminated above the lifetime exposure levels once considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.
But the Environmental Working Group, a watchdog association that tracks risks from those chemicals, said the number is higher: an estimated 640,000 people at 116 military installations.
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The group said that the DoD's analysis looked only at installations where levels of the chemicals exceeded 70 parts per trillion — the advisory level set by the EPA in 2016 — and doesn't account for the new accepted measure of less than 1 part per trillion.
The study also did not include possible exposure from drinking water from non-DoD sources, such as local utility companies or privatized on-base water systems, which also may be contaminated.
And it didn't explore the effects on pregnant women and unborn children, including an estimated 13,000 servicewomen, as well as…
