Residents of Pearl City’s Waiawa Road area are demanding answers — and assistance — after learning that the National Guard and the state Department of Health are investigating the possibility that toxic chemicals from fire suppressant used years ago by firefighters at the Hawaii National Guard’s Waiawa Unit Training and Equipment Site may have seeped into their groundwater.

During a sometimes emotional meeting Friday night at the facility, the National Guard announced it will be asking landowners and tenants for permission to enter their homes to test the water and will also be asking owners of privately owned wells in the area to allow testing for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, dubbed PFAS, which are sometimes called “forever chemicals” because they are slow to degrade in the environment.

PFAS are a key ingredient in aqueous film-­forming foam, or AFFF, a powerful fire suppressant designed to put out fuel fires. Officials stressed the testing is a precaution after finding “slightly elevated” PFAS levels at the training base and that they believe wider contamination is unlikely.

Officials said they are looking to evaluate about 50 to 60 homes in the surrounding area, with test results expected in 12 to 14 weeks. If toxic substances are found, the National Guard will begin delivering clean drinking water.

Resident Harley Broyles asked if there was any way they could expedite the process or begin providing clean drinking water before test results arrive, breaking into tears as she told them she was afraid to give her 3-year-old son water from the tap.

“I don’t want him to drink that water one more day,” she said. “If it’s contaminated, he’s been drinking contaminated water all of his life.”

Officials said they’re limited in terms of what they can provide in the short term. Lt. Col. Brian Hun­saker, branch chief for cleanup and restoration at Army National Guard headquarters in Virginia, told Broyles that government funds can’t be used to buy water for residents because, “unfortunately, we are tied to legal authority that comes from Congress.”

When residents and activists with the Oahu Water Protectors grilled officials for telling them it would be illegal to give out water to the affected households, Hawaii Army National Guard Chief of Staff Col. Tyson Tahara told the audience he would check with local Guard members about pooling their own money to buy water and work with activists to coordinate deliveries.

The Waiawa investigation comes as the military’s handling of toxic materials in Hawaii is under intense scrutiny in the wake of the November 2021 contamination of the Navy’s Oahu water system, which serves 93,000 people, by fuel from its underground Red Hill fuel farm. The Pentagon last year agreed to defuel Red Hill after months of resisting a state emergency order.

Separately, in November as many as 1,300 gallons of AFFF spilled at the Red Hill facility. In January officials working on the defueling said that an investigation into the spill by Maj. Gen. Richard Heitkamp of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been completed, but it has yet to be released to the public.

The continued spills have soured relations between many Hawaii residents and local government officials and military leaders.

“I care about water and it hurts me when I hear some of these things,” Pearl City Neighborhood Board Chair Larry Veray said of the AFFF findings at Waiawa. A Vietnam veteran, Veray said that while he cares about the military and wants to work with leaders, his community’s trust has been badly damaged.

AFFF HAS been used since the 1970s by both military and civilian entities to put out fuel fires, particularly at airports. In January, the state Department of Transportation announced that PFAS had been detected in soil at a firefighting training pit at Kahului Airport and in the groundwater below, with testing for the substances underway at other airports across the state.

Hunsaker told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that when AFFF was first in use, “it was amazing.”

“It puts out a fuel fire, which are very hard to fight, immediately. So it’s been adopted across all aviation … anywhere there’s fuel involved because it was so effective at putting out a fire and saving lives because of it,” he said.

In recent years, PFAS have been linked to negative health effects including cancer and birth defects. The military has been reviewing records and doing tests at facilities where AFFF and other PFAS materials were used or believed to have been used.

A Hawaii National Guard firefighting unit is stationed at the Waiawa facility. Hunsaker said AFFF was used during training events between 2006 and 2008 and was stored at the base until 2020 as the military underwent efforts to scale back its use.

“As near as we can tell it was only used in training for a couple of years and not in large quantities,” he said. “But nonetheless, it was used.”

DOH environmental health specialist Sven Lindstrom said that several wells were identified about a mile away from the base and that it’s unlikely the chemicals spread that far; however, testing is necessary to rule out contamination.

In addition to requests for clean water, some residents asked about getting tested for exposure to PFAS. DOH toxicologist Diana Felton said that while that kind of testing is possible, it’s expensive and not covered by insurance. The testing also tends to offer little insight into an individual’s symptoms beyond figuring out how one person’s level of exposure compares to others.

Waiawa resident and veteran Andre Perez told officials, “There is some discussion about liability in terms of human impacts.”

While military service members and their families affected by the Red Hill contamination were able to seek treatment at military medical facilities when they exhibited symptoms, many civilian residents of former Navy housing at Kapilina Beach homes and other areas had to pay out of pocket at local hospitals and clinics.

The military recently opened a Red Hill clinic for people suffering long-term symptoms but it is only available to service members and their families, though Defense Health Agency officials say they are trying to remove bureaucratic roadblocks to begin seeing civilians.

Perez said he believes the best way to protect the island’s water and public health is for the military to begin downsizing its presence here, a process he said he would like to see end with troops leaving Hawaii altogether.

While both Waiawa residents and activists leveled biting criticism in response to Friday’s announcements, several also thanked the National Guard for reaching out to the community. Davie-Ann Momilani, an Oahu-born Navy wife who lives in Pearl City, told officials “as a Navy Red Hill- affected family member, thank you guys for being honest (and) coming out and saying you guys are willing to stay on top of this. You guys did more than the Navy did.”

Honolulu Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau, a vocal critic of the Navy’s handling of the Red Hill crisis, thanked the National Guard for notifying the community of the investigation and said he wants to help Guard leaders find laboratories that could expedite the testing process.

Board of Water Supply Deputy Manager Erwin Kawata told attendees at the meeting the agency has been testing Oahu water for PFAS since 2020 and gets its results within 41 days.