[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: Bellows Air Force Station (HI)

[Lenny Siegel <Lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The PFAS Shell Game at Bellows Air Force Station

By Pat Elder 
Military Poisons
March 10, 2026

Bellows Air Force Station in Hawai’i presents a disturbing case study in how the military’s PFAS investigations are structured to narrow public understanding while limiting the scope and cost of cleanup. Most of the old Air Force base was transferred to the Marine Corps in 1999, creating an opportunity for the Pentagon to bury the environmental record. The Air Force limited its review to the coastal recreation parcel it retained. This is an area unlikely to contain contamination sources.  Meanwhile, the Marine Corps focused on a single aircraft crash site under its tenure, ignoring the historical record of PFAS contamination.

No fire training areas, fire stations, hangars, or emergency response areas were identified within the boundary of the current Bellows Air Force Station parcel, consisting of 422 acres, according to an Air Force final report on PFAS. The  PFAS Preliminary Assessment / Site Inspection  for Bellows Air Force Station  notes that the Bellows runways were closed in 1958, ending their role as an active airfield. Based on this closure, the report concluded that significant AFFF releases were unlikely to have occurred at Bellows AFS after 1970.

They’re not telling the whole story of PFAS contamination by the Air Force since the late 1960’s.  The Marine Corps acquired 1,049 acres of Bellows Air Force Station from the Air Force in 1999. The Marine Corps Training Area Bellows is now part of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, headquartered in Kaneohe Bay.  

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/the-pfas-shell-game-at-bellows-air-force-station

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)




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