By SHOGO MITSUZUMI/ Staff Writer
December 28, 2021 at 18:05 JST
The U.S. Kadena Air Base, seen in the background, and an adjacent residential area in Kadena, Okinawa Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
NAHA--Water quality checks near U.S. bases in Okinawa Prefecture found alarming levels of a suspected carcinogen and other substances at 38 locations, or more than 70 percent of 49 surveyed sites.
In all those cases, the levels of toxic materials exceeded government-set criteria.
In its water quality guidelines for drinking and river water, as well as groundwater, the Environment Ministry sets a provisional target for restricting the combined presence of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and other substances to no more than 50 nanograms per liter of water.
Okinawa Prefecture on Dec. 27 released the results of regular water quality checks around U.S. bases that started in fiscal 2017. Authorities there collected samples between August and October from locations that are not used to draw water for drinking.
The results showed the level of PFOS and other substances exceeded the ministry’s target at all 14 surveyed sites near the U.S. Kadena Air Base, which straddles Okinawa, Kadena, Chatan and other municipalities in the southernmost prefecture.
The level of PFOS and other substances also exceeded the target at 11 of 20 surveyed locations around the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan. The base released water contaminated with PFOS into the city’s sewage system in August.
More than 1,000 nanograms of PFOS and other substances per liter of water, or 20 times higher than the target, were detected at eight sites near the two U.S. bases.
A check of water quality on a sample collected from groundwater running below a private home in Kadena town found the level of PFOS and other substances was 2,300 nanograms per liter, or 46 times higher than the government level.
Japan, in principle, banned the manufacture and use of PFOS in 2010. The substance had been used in firefighting foam.
The central and prefectural governments have asked the U.S. military to allow them to conduct on-site inspections at its bases.
But those requests fell on deaf ears, leaving the authorities unable to determine why PFOS and other substances were detected in local water quality checks.
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