Save the Dates for Pat Elder Tour to 20 California Cities in March
Published on January, 08 2020
July, 2019: Pat Elder addresses PFAS contamination caused by nearby Ramstein Airbase at the Apostle Church in Kaiserslautern, Germany. From Pat Elder, used with permission.
By Nancy Price
Co-chair, Earth Democracy Issue Committee
February 2020
In March, Pat Elder will visit 20 California cities to speak on the threat to public health posed by the Pentagon’s reckless use of carcinogenic and toxic PFAS chemicals, and other chemicals, on military bases across the state. Hundreds of contaminated sites on active and former military bases have been identified not just in California, but throughout the United States.
How many of you saw the movie Dark Waters? On this tour, Pat will be telling the “other half of the story” by shifting the focus from Dupont and Parkersburg, West Virginia, to expose the Department of Defense’s contamination of California’s precious fresh water sources through their deadly use of carcinogenic and toxic per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Pat will “livestream” from some military bases and speak at rallies and press conferences at others. He’ll speak at events organized by many of our California WILPF branches and at two special forums.
Mark your calendars NOW. The full, updated schedule of the tour is online now, and here is a printable pdf document.
A description of the two forums, March 21 in Berkeley and March 22, World Water Day, in San Francisco, and the biographies of some of the speakers are also available on the militarypoisons.org website
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Please support this project so we can bring speakers who lived at George Air Force Base in Victorville, Southern California, and now live out-of-state, to speak at the two forums on Panel 2: Contamination Chronicles: The Toxic Legacy of George AFB. |
Carcinogenic aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) released from an aircraft hangar at Travis AFB, Calif., Sept. 24, 2013. (U.S. Air Force photo/Ken Wright/Released)
PFAS chemicals, a family of almost 5,000 different formulations, are called “forever chemicals” because they bio-accumulate and take many decades to break down in nature and in our bodies. They have been used for more than 40 years in routine military exercises and in actual events to extinguish petroleum-based fires on bases in the US and around the world, even though suitable fluorine-free firefighting foams are used in other countries. Over these decades, the military has callously allowed these carcinogenic substances to leach into the soil and thereby contaminate surface and groundwater used for drinking water on bases and in surrounding communities. Many on-base residents and those in surrounding communities were for years unknowingly drinking this contaminated water.
All who live in California and those of you who live across the country but who have friends and family in the state, please alert them to this tour. Help us get a good turnout for these important tour events, and at the same time spread the word on the extent of the military’s extensive contribution to the current global environmental and health crisis in California and nationwide.
Please invite the local organizations you work with to come to these events, and reach out to others you know would be interested.
Help us build a broad, intersectional movement of environmental, health, water justice, and peace groups to protect the environment and the health of current and future generations. And as we bring to light the devastating environmental impact of the US military, together we can make the case that we must end wars through diplomacy and reduce the military budget to fund much needed programs for the common good.
