The health concerns of residents living close to U.S. military facilities in Japan continue increasing due to toxic chemicals found in the water that stemmed from leaks of contaminants from the bases. 

PFAS synthetic chemicals has been found in areas near factories, U.S. bases and Self-Defense Forces bases across Japan.

According to a survey by a civic group in 2022, blood tests for 387 people living near U.S. bases in Okinawa Prefecture detected levels of man-made chemicals up to three times the national average found in a central government survey.

PFAS levels in blood tests for 650 residents in Tokyo’s Tama district, which is close to the U.S. Yokota Air Base, stood at more than twice the national average.

A major stumbling block to Japanese efforts to get an entire and clear picture of the widespread contamination is the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, which stipulates the rights of U.S. forces in Japan.

The SOFA grants the U.S. military the authority to manage its bases in Japan.

Many Japanese defense experts have long argued that the pact is weighted heavily in favor of Washington.

Inked in 1960, the SOFA has never been revised despite repeated calls from Japanese citizens for a review working toward an “equal” agreement.

'FOREVER CHEMICALS' A MENACE

Across Japan, PFAS have been detected in rivers and wells, posing a health threat to hundreds of thousands of residents. 

PFAS is an acronym for a group of synthetic chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances that are linked to cancer and other health problems.

Approximately 4,700 kinds of PFAS substances have been identified to date. Most representative of these chemicals are PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid.)

The chemicals are highly resistant to water, oil and heat. They have been used in a variety of products from nonstick cookware to water-repellant clothing to firefighting foam.

They are also called “forever chemicals” because they do not fully break down and can accumulate in the human body and the environment. The manufacture and use of these hazardous chemicals are banned in Japan, in principle.

A major source is industrial plants.

But U.S. military bases that had routinely used firefighting foam are also thought to be a key source of PFAS contamination.

NO ACCESS TO PREFECTURAL OFFICIALS

Okinawa Prefecture, where 70 percent of all U.S. bases in Japan are concentrated in terms of land, has been seriously impacted by contaminated water that apparently spilled over from those facilities into the neighboring communities. 

A series of surveys conducted at locations in the vicinity of U.S. bases since 2016 have detected levels higher than the central government’s “interim standards”--a combined 50 nanograms per liter for PFOS and PFOA.

PFAS levels in rivers exceeded the standards in the central area of Okinawa’s main island where U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and Kadena Air Base are located, forcing local authorities to halt almost all extracting of water in 2022.

But officials resumed pumping in February after the water storage rate at reservoirs on the island slipped to below 50 percent due to a lack of rainfall.

Prefectural officials say they do not expect the resumption to adversely affect the health of residents, citing the use of activated carbon to filter out hazardous substances.

But residents are not reassured, questioning if the water is safe.

The prefectural government spent 3.2 billion yen ($20.6 million) on measures to address the PFAS contamination around U.S. bases over the past eight years. Of this, 1 billion yen was subsidized by the Defense Ministry.

An additional 8 billion yen will be needed to tackle the problem over the next decade, according to an estimate by prefectural officials.

Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki has maintained that “the central government should foot the bill since it is the party that authorizes the provision of land for U.S. bases.”

Prefectural officials have sought access to the U.S. installations to conduct on-site investigations to identify the source of the contamination, but the U.S. side has not been cooperative.

Since 2016, they have filed a request on six occasions. But their requests were granted only on two occasions.

One concerned the leak in 2020 of more than 700 drums (the equivalent of 140,000 liters) of PFAS containing firefighting agents from the Futenma facility into the neighboring residential district.

The other was the leak of water laced with PFOS from one of the U.S. Army’s fuel storage facilities in Uruma city in 2021.

The prefectural government has maintained that the central government should assist Okinawan officials in gaining access to the bases. 

But while the central government pledged to actively work with the U.S. side over the issue, it has yet to show any steps toward making it happen. 

PFAS contamination around U.S. bases is not limited to Okinawa Prefecture. The problem has been reported in Tokyo and other prefectures hosting U.S. military installations, including Kanagawa and Aomori. 

The U.S. military revealed only last year that there were three PFAS leak cases at its Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo between 2010 and 2012.

But U.S. officials did not offer information on the volume of the leaks and other details, insisting that it is not aware of any leakage that traveled outside the base.

As in Okinawa Prefecture, officials in these prefectures have been unable to gain access to U.S. bases to conduct investigations. 

U.S. ACCUSED OF 'DOUBLE STANDARD'

Meanwhile, in the United States, authorities have aggressively tackled the goal of reducing PFAS levels in the tap water and elsewhere.

The U.S. government is set to invest $9 billion (upward of 1.3 trillion yen) over five years to help industrial plants and other facilities to address the pollution.

The monitoring of levels of the chemicals in livestock and vegetables as well as in blood samples from the general population have been ongoing. 

But Washington is believed to be reluctant to take sweeping countermeasures  to address the contamination associated with U.S. bases in Japan, drawing criticism for having a double standard.

According to a study by the Environmental Working Group, a U.S. advocacy group, at least 700 military installations across the United States are suspected of being contaminated or having contaminated neighboring communities.

The environmental concerns are particularly serious in Hawaii, home to numerous U.S. military bases, similar to what is being felt in Okinawa.

The U.S. Navy’s Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility has been at the center of a  pollution crisis.

In 2021, jet fuel totaling more than 70,000 liters seeped into the groundwater, polluting the drinking water for 93,000 people and sickening residents in the hundreds of households.

In the following year, the facility leaked about 4,900 liters of firefighting foam containing PFAS.

The incidents sparked a wave of rallies by locals calling for the closure of the storage site.

In one rally, a Honolulu official overseeing the city’s water systems led the protest that drew about 1,500 participants.

In March 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowed to “restore safe drinking water to all affected residents.”

The Department of Defense has decided to shut down the facility by 2027.

Those who joined the protest included relatives of U.S. Navy personnel. One woman said safe drinking water is indispensable to the health of her family and residents of the entire community and that national security starts with clean water.

NATO SOFA SEEN AS MORE EQUITABLE

There is a remarkable difference between Japan and European countries in terms of the extent of jurisdictions they have over U.S. bases in their countries.

In Germany, the U.S. side is primarily responsible for funding the investigations of pollution and cleanup deriving from U.S. military installations.

In Belgium, the U.S. military conducts water quality tests. 

Germany, Italy and Belgium, as NATO members, have a SOFA with the North Atlantic military alliance, which the United States has also joined. 

Those countries’ respective environmental laws are basically applied to U.S. bases, but that is not the case in Japan.

In Germany, in accordance with the stipulation of the NATO SOFA supplementary agreement, the federal government, state and municipal authorities have the right to enter and conduct on-site inspections inside U.S. bases.

In Italy, Italian military commanders are permanently stationed at U.S. bases.

Keisuke Mori, an associate professor at Senshu University who is well-versed in how Germany deals with the PFAS contamination, noted that a SOFA based on a bilateral security treaty, such as the one between Tokyo and Washington, tends to be marked by a dominant-subordinate relationship, unlike the multilateral NATO agreement. 

“Even if U.S. bases are suspected of having contaminated nearby communities, Japanese authorities cannot determine the source of the pollution unless they are allowed to enter the facilities,” he said. “Japan’s SOFA with the United States should be reviewed to make U.S. bases subject to Japanese laws.”

In 2018, the association of prefectural governors proposed a drastic review of the SOFA in response to an appeal from Okinawa Prefecture. It was the association’s first such proposal.

The PFAS contamination associated with U.S. bases is a crucial issue due to the health risks of people in the nearby communities.

But Tokyo has shied away from prodding Washington toward remediation partly out of consideration that it should not do so at a time when the perceived threat from China is increasing.

If former President Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November, he may demand that Japan shoulder more of the economic burden of hosting U.S. troops in Japan.

Japanese officials should thus move swiftly to shift the SOFA to an equally balanced one to build a more stable defense alliance with the United States.

INCREASED AWARENESS OF TOXIC CHEMICALS

Japanese officials are responsible for responding to local residents’ health concerns as a first step toward that direction.

In March, the Environment Ministry released a report that a survey conducted in fiscal 2022 detected levels of PFAS in groundwater and rivers higher than the government’s interim standards at 111 sites in Tokyo and 15 other prefectures.

Of these sites, the source of contamination was identified at only two, which were in Oita Prefecture.

PFAS concentrations in groundwater were the highest in Settsu, Osaka Prefecture. The chemicals have been found in groundwater around a manufacturing factory, but local officials said the polluted groundwater is not used for the tap water.

The health risks of PFAS have been voiced around the world since 1990s.

The manufacture and use of the compounds were later prohibited, in principle, under the U.N. Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Last year, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organization’s specialized agency, raised the cancer risks from PFOA to “Carcinogenic to Humans,” the highest of four-level classifications.

In April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a mandate that limits PFOS and PFOA levels in tap water to 4 nanograms per liter each (one nanogram is equal to one-billionth of a gram).

The new regulation, in comparison, is far stricter than most countries.

In contrast, the Japanese government has maintained the position that there are few sufficient scientific facts about health threats posed by these chemicals and that no health damage has yet to be confirmed.

As for the safety of tap water, the central government set the provisional standards in 2020 that restricts a combined amount of PFOS and PFOA to 50 nanograms per liter.

The government says that amount would not adversely affect the health of a person weighing 50 kilograms who drinks 2 liters of water daily for 70 years or so.

It is also considering upgrading the interim standards to the environmental quality standards, making the rules on water discharge legally enforceable.

But it will likely take some more time before Japan reaches that stage, given that discussions by environmental experts have just begun.

In 2022, the government added PFOS, PFOA and two other compounds to a list of “designated substances” that will be regulated by the water pollution prevention law.

If entities are responsible for the leak of such substances, they are obliged to notify municipal authorities.

But U.S. bases in Japan are exempt from the requirement.