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FOIA Documents: Drunk US Marine's 2015 dump of toxic foam among accidents polluting Okinawa water supply

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Jon Mitchell
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Extract

Documents released via MuckRock under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal that lax safety standards at the largest USAF base in the Pacific may be to blame for recent contamination of drinking water sources on Okinawa.

The internal reports expose a spate of accidents at Kadena Air Base during the past 15 years which have leaked at least 21,000 liters of fire extinguishing agents - some of them toxic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 7 , April 2016 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2016

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References

Notes

1 The entire 23 May 2015 report into the incident is available to read here.

2 “Drunk Marine releases fire suppression system in Kadena hangar,” Stars and Stripes, June 12, 2015. Available here.

3 The internal report from 2 July 2001 detailing the series of accidents is available here.

4 The 16 August 2012 report is here, the 4 December 2013 report is here and the 30 September 2014 report is here.

5 “Detection of PFOS in drinking water leads to request for access onto US base compounds,” Ryukyu Shimpo, January 21, 2016. Available here.

6 Masaaki Kameda, “U.S.-Japan environmental agreement on U.S. bases flawed, experts say,” The Japan Times, September 29, 2015. Available here.

7 Department of Defense, “Japan Environmental Governing Standards,” December 2012. Available here.

8 The FOIA-released documents suggest that Kadena officials originally identified the leak as JET-X 2% - and the agent's safety data sheet was included in the report together with the data sheet for JET-X 2.75%. However, in follow-up correspondence, base officials stated that none of the three ingredients of the May 2015 foam is listed under JEGS. By crosschecking the two agents' ingredients it can be seen that none of the ingredients of JET-X 2.75% is listed under JEGS, however JET-X 2% includes ethylene glycol - which is listed. Therefore it must be concluded that the foam released by the drunk Marine was JET-X 2.75%.

9 See, for example, QAB's TV news report from February 10, here.

10 The letter can be read here.

11 A longer exploration of this issue can be read in Japanese here.

12 Jon Mitchell, “Kadena Moms Demand Truth”, The Japan Times, January 21, 2014. Available here.