Japanese authorities, including officials from the Defense Ministry, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and several municipalities in western Tokyo, jointly inspected the Yokota Air Base on Friday following a leak of water containing toxic “forever chemicals” outside the base in August.
The inspection comes amid growing public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of over 10,000 fluorinated chemicals that have been used worldwide since the 1940s. Recent studies suggest that some of the chemicals, including perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), are carcinogenic and carry other health risks.
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