Tag: PFAS

– Declining enrollment, surplus schools: MPUSD Del Rey Woods and Marshall Elementary Schools as a case study

By Nina Beety

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, along with many school districts faced with shrinking enrollment and decreased revenues, is considering permanently closing schools and selling the properties. Currently, MPUSD’s 7-11 Committee is discussing the possibilities.

The most important part of MPUSD’s evaluations must be which school properties are safest and which are adjacent to hazards as a criteria for retention. It is not clear that safety is part of their considerations past or present. Schools with known or newly discovered toxins or hazards must be the first ones to be closed, and children moved to safer schools, even if they must be transported by school bus every day. Hazards can include toxics contamination, noise, air pollution, microwave antennas and cell towers, electrical substations, and high voltage lines.

Del Rey Woods Elementary School, at Plumas Avenue in Seaside, is one such hazardous location. It is located along PG&E’s high-voltage transmission line corridor, and children attend classes and play in the playground in those elevated EMF fields. It must be closed.

Research has shown that children exposed to powerline frequencies are at risk of serious life-threatening illnesses especially leukemia. The students’ exposure is compounded by the Wi-Fi in the school. This is not a safe environment for children or school staff, including staff members who are pregnant, but the school district has ignored this situation for years, with the current superintendent even sending his children to the school.

Marshall Elementary School on Normandy Road is another hazardous site. It is located on the Fort Ord National Priorities List Superfund site now part of Seaside, and sits below the large PFAS dump on Numa Watson Road which the Army only acknowledged in 2022. For at least 10 years until the 1990s, fire crews would purge their trucks of fire-fighting foam once a month as well as practice spraying foam at that location. It would go into the storm drains and into the Monterey Bay, as well as drain downhill, drying out and becoming dust to be carried by the wind to nearby homes and Marshall. Chartwell School, a private school, was built in 2006 immediately adjacent to the dump. When Chartwell School applied to expand the school last year, Seaside and Chartwell learned about the PFAS contamination for the first time from the public. So did MPUSD’s superintendent PK Diffenbaugh who attended the planning commission hearing to support Chartwell’s expansion. He has taken no public action in the year since learning of the dangerous contamination affecting Marshall Elementary.

Marshall should be shut down pending a full investigation of PFAS and other contaminants in and around the area due to the risk to students and staff. The school district must also close Del Rey Woods School. They must move all these students to the former Monte Vista Elementary School on Soledad Drive in Monterey, which they have shut down, and to other campuses. The former Monte Vista is a much safer environment for children and school staff than many other locations. It is not near any cell towers or high voltage lines.

When the district made their decision to close Monte Vista, Foothill, and other schools in 2021, it was without proper consideration of critical factors. The board and staff continue to ignore them and their responsibility to student and staff safety first. The school district needs to go back to the drawing board. And the district must wire all internet connections and eliminate wireless internet in all its schools.

Sources:

https://ehsciences.org/powerlines-emf-elf-magnetic-fields-health/
The Health Effects of EMF, ELF and Magnetic Fields from Power Lines and Electricity

https://ehsciences.org/major-wins-for-childrens-health-u-s-school-districts-are-opposing-high-voltage-power-lines-the-49ers-may-relocate-away-from-the-substation/
Nationwide Moves To Protect Children’s Health: U.S. School Districts Are Opposing High Voltage Power Lines + the 49ers May Relocate Away From the Substation!

https://peteranthonycowan.substack.com/t/49ers-emf-injury-series
Peter Cowan “49er EMF Injury Series”

https://peteranthonycowan.substack.com/p/reading-the-leaves-the-trees-near
Reading the Leaves: The Trees Near the 49ers’ Substation Knew First

Also, on Temecula Valley Unified School District:
https://ehsciences.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Temecula-Valley-Unified-School-District-Resolution-Opposing-the-SDGE-Golden-Pacific-Powerline-Project-Near-School-Facilities.pdf

PFAS contamination near Marshall Elementary School:
https://aec.army.mil/Portals/115/PFAS/POM_PASI.pdf?ver=50d44b8fvCrh6O006dqqPQ%3D%3D
Final Preliminary Assessment of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances V2, February 2022
4.3 Readily Identifiable Off-Post PFAS Sources, p. 11

https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/pfas-at-the-former-fort-ord
Excerpt: Former nozzle testing area near the Chartwell School

Historic amounts of carcinogen PFAS foams were sprayed here.

Fire department personnel conducted training, fire hose and tank flushing, and nozzle testing in a paved area near the Chartwell School on Numa Watson Road until the 1990s, before the property was transferred to the City of Seaside.

Fire department personnel were trained to perform nozzle testing with AFFF to ensure optimal flow and release of the AFFF mixture. Nozzle testing involved spraying AFFF through fire equipment. Fire equipment training also included arc training to maximize the arc, reach, and distance covered by AFFF in an emergency response.

Training took place about once a month for at least 10 years, releasing approximately 30 gallons of AFFF concentrate during each event. The nozzle testing area was a large asphalt parking area with storm drains that lead to channels that discharge into Monterey Bay.

Approximately 3,600 gallons of AFFF concentrate was used here. Usually, firefighters mixed 3% concentrate with 97% water. A single event using 30 gallons would be mixed with 970 gallons of water to produce 1,000 gallons of foam.

On August 19, 2024, in one of the greatest PFAS accidents in the nation’s history, 1,450 gallons of PFAS-AFFF concentrate spilled from Hangar 4 at the former Brunswick, Maine Naval Air Station. In November 2022, there was another historic release of approximately 1,300 gallons of AFFF concentrate at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

These historic releases don’t match the cumulative tragedy on Numa Watson Road.

Physicians for Safe Technology
https://mdsafetech.org/wi-fi-in-schools-2/
– Wi-Fi in Schools
https://mdsafetech.org/cell-tower-health-effects/
– Cell Tower Radiation Health Effects

Military Poisons
www.militarypoisons.org
– search “Fort Ord” for articles on base contamination

– Response to ATSDR water report: Fort Ord health questions not answered by limited report

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) report https://montereybaymatters.org/2026/07/09/new-federal-report-on-1985-1994-fort-ord-drinking-water/

It evaluates only nine chemicals identified in available drinking-water records…It does not assess pre-1985 drinking-water exposures, post-1994 redevelopment, vapor intrusion into occupied buildings, PFAS contamination, contaminated soils, or other potential routes of exposure.

ATSDR will be present at the July 25 Fort Ord Workshop and Open House to provide an update on their report — see related post and calendar.

By Julie Akey
Published by the Monterey Herald
July 13, 2026

Sean Tubo’s July 10 Monterey Herald article, “New study says Fort Ord water posed no public health hazard,” accurately reports the conclusions of ATSDR’s updated Health Consultation. However, the ATSDR answers only a narrow question: whether a limited number of contaminants found in drinking water between 1985 and 1994 were likely to pose unacceptable health risks. The ATSDR report does not answer the broader question that thousands of former soldiers, military families, civilian employees, and Monterey County residents have been asking for decades: Did contamination at Fort Ord sicken and kill many?

The agency limited its evaluation to 1985 through 1994 largely to remain consistent with an assessment it conducted in 1996. That may satisfy an administrative objective, but it is not a scientific one. Fort Ord remained occupied after 1994, and thousands of people continued to live, work, attend school and recreate there for years after the Army closed the base.

I know because I was one of them.

I lived at Fort Ord in 1996 and 1997. Twenty years later, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Since then, I have identified 138 people who lived or served at Fort Ord and later developed the same blood cancer. Altogether, I have compiled a database of nearly 2,000 former residents and military personnel suffering from cancers and other serious illnesses associated with chemicals known to have contaminated the installation. Most of these diseases are associated with military activities.

The report also acknowledges another major limitation: there are virtually no drinking-water records before 1985. Without those records, ATSDR cannot evaluate exposures during much of Fort Ord’s operational history. That absence of data should never be interpreted as evidence that harmful exposures did not occur. It simply means we do not know.

Nor does the report examine every contaminant that may have been present. It evaluates only nine chemicals identified in available drinking-water records. As a result, its conclusions apply only to those contaminants, during that limited period, under the specific exposure assumptions used by the agency.

Perhaps the most significant unanswered question involves vapor intrusion.

ATSDR openly acknowledges that indoor-air and sub-slab sampling are needed to determine whether toxic vapors migrated from contaminated groundwater and soil gas into occupied buildings. Because those data do not exist for the period studied, the agency states it cannot determine whether people were exposed through this pathway.

This is an extraordinary admission.

Today, large portions of the former Fort Ord have been redeveloped into neighborhoods, apartment complexes, schools, university facilities, athletic fields, offices and retail centers. Many sit above documented groundwater plumes containing trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), carbon tetrachloride, and other volatile chemicals.

At The Dunes on Monterey Bay, soil-gas investigations continue to detect elevated concentrations of TCE and PCE beneath a busy commercial development. Yet comparable investigations have not been conducted beneath many residential neighborhoods or student housing at Cal State Monterey Bay, located above documented groundwater contamination.

The reported outdoor concentrations of PCE (tetrachloroethylene) and TCE (trichloroethylene) are exceptionally severe for an open-air pedestrian environment. Employees and regular shoppers may be at risk.

Vapor intrusion is not simply a historical concern. It represents a current exposure pathway affecting people who live, work, shop, and study on the former base today.

PFAS contamination presents another major gap. Because these “forever chemicals” were not monitored in drinking water during the 1985-1994 period, ATSDR correctly concludes that it cannot evaluate potential health risks from PFAS exposure. But that should not be misunderstood as evidence that PFAS were absent.

The report does not evaluate every contaminant, every exposure pathway, or every period of Fort Ord’s history. It does not assess pre-1985 drinking-water exposures, post-1994 redevelopment, vapor intrusion into occupied buildings, PFAS contamination, contaminated soils, or other potential routes of exposure.

ATSDR should evaluate post-1994 exposure scenarios, including neighborhoods, schools, university facilities, athletic complexes and commercial developments built on the former installation. It should recommend comprehensive indoor-air testing where groundwater plumes remain beneath occupied buildings. It should continue searching for pre-1985 environmental records and support investigations into PFAS and other contaminants that could not be evaluated because historical monitoring data are missing.

For thousands of former Fort Ord residents and veterans, this report is not the end of the story. It is a reminder of how much we still do not know—and why the investigation must continue.

Julie Akey is a U.S. Army veteran who served at Fort Ord. Akey, who now lives in Ohio, has cancer. She was featured in an Associated Press story investigating pollution at Fort Ord.

https://www.montereyherald.com/2026/07/13/guest-commentary-fort-ords-unanswered-health-questions/

For lists of contaminants known or likely to be used at Fort Ord and other investigations, including FOCAG documents: https://montereybaymatters.org/fort-ord/