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By Jasmine Laws
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A new study has found that tree swallows near U.S. military bases carry higher levels of PFAS chemicals, which experts said could have implications across the food chain, impacting Americans.
While the findings are "not surprising," as many PFAS chemicals can "move from the environment into the bodies of living organisms," a process called bioaccumulation, the way in which these chemicals are affecting environmental health is "concerning," Jamie DeWitt, director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center at Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek.
Newsweek has contacted the lead author of the study via email for comment.
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Why It Matters
PFAS chemicals, also known as forever chemicals, are classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, but are used in various industries, and in consumer products, including smartwatch wristbands.
Given their widespread use, more and more studies have been finding the chemicals in America's drinking water, meaning that millions of Americans are being exposed to them every day.
This has been raising serious concern among experts as PFAS chemicals have been associated with a wide array of health issues, such as increased risk of various cancers alongside hormonal and reproductive issues.
The new study highlights the far-reaching prevalence of these chemicals in the environment, not only in America's drinking water, but also in it's wildlife.
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What To Know
The researchers, led by Christine Custer from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, tested eggs, nestlings, and the insects the birds ate at 10 locations from the Mid-Atlantic to the Upper Midwest.
These locations were: Willow Grove (PA), Lakehurst (NJ), Camp Springs (MD), Chesapeake Beach (MD), Laurel (MD), Ashumet Pond (MA), Lake Elmo (MN), Grey Cloud Island (MN), Gibson City (IL), and Scanlon (MN).
The researchers found that the total PFAS chemicals identified across various samples relating to the birds near the military sites was 40 times higher than those in other environments.
The findings also revealed that one PFAS chemical, PFHxS, also known as perfluorohexane sulfonate, which is the second most common constituent of AFFF, accounted for up to 9.7 percent in the eggs and 9 percent in the nestlings out of the total PFAS concentration.
The researchers also tracked whether the eggs hatched and how long the nestlings survived at each site but they did not find a noticeable impact based on various markers of bird health.
This doesn't mean that PFAS exposures in birds "isn't a problem," Kimberly Garrett, a professor of environmental, occupational, and geospatial health sciences at the City University of New York (CUNY), told Newsweek.
She said that detection of PFAS chemicals in birds "can serve as indicators for other species, including humans, and biomagnification can occur as many songbirds are prey for a variety of other sensitive species."
The reason that birds near military sites have higher levels of exposure to PFAS chemicals is largely caused by the fact that various drills at these bases require the use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), which is extremely high in PFAS chemicals.
The specific PFAS chemical found in high amounts in the study was PFOS, which is commonly in AFFFs, Christy Haynes, a professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek.
The chemicals from the foam can leach into soil and water and enter the environment, meaning wildlife, like these swallows, will be consuming insects, soil and water high in PFAS chemicals, as well as using materials from an AFFF-exposed site to build nests, Haynes said.
PFOS is also "very bio-accumulative in biota," Graham Peaslee, a professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, told Newsweek, explaining that the chemicals will bioaccumulate in the insects, worms and larvae that the birds eat, and then in the birds too.
He said this was because PFOS is "just the right size and 'stickiness' that it binds very well to mammalian blood and various other surfaces in mammalian organs."
As a result, "a large percentage of the PFAS in the bird's blood is passed onto their eggs—which when eaten by other animals will pass on even more PFOS to other animals up the food web," he said.
Elsie Sunderland, a professor of environmental chemistry and earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, who was not part of the study, told Newsweek that birds also tend to consume a significant amount relative to their body size so "it is not surprising that they contain elevated concentrations of PFAS."
"Wildlife exposures, particularly sensitive species like birds and amphibians, at contaminated sites are a cause for concern," she said.
It is also not just birds that are being affected by these chemicals—"drinking water and recreational fish species are also highly contaminated next to these sites across the country," Sunderland said.
What People Are Saying
Elsie Sunderland told Newsweek: "One of our studies from 2023 showed statistically that U.S. military sites are the second-largest source of drinking water PFAS contamination across the country. The largest magnitude of contamination was from manufacturing sites but there are only a few of these, so the greatest number of people are exposed to contamination from military bases. Our work also suggests that recreational fish species will be highly contaminated above consumption recommendations throughout the watershed connected to the military bases."
Christy Haynes told Newsweek: "It concerns me because anthropogenic substances are present in significant amounts in a species important to our ecosystem and food chain. My concern is somewhat ameliorated by the lack of health effects seen in the tree swallows and their offspring. I would expect that this finding would be generalized to all wildlife near military bases that used AFFFs. This leads to concerns about biomagnification as one species consumes another, especially if humans eat species with biomagnified PFAS amounts."
She added: "If we are convinced through scientific study that PFAS exposure through food consumption is a significant concern, PFAS should likely be monitored in wildlife that are going to be consumed. More broadly, scientific studies have shown that people who live near military bases where AAAFs were used are exposed to the same PFAS through the groundwater—this is likely a more serious concern to Americans than tree swallow PFAS levels."
Jamie DeWitt told Newsweek: "This is just further evidence that PFAS have widespread environmental effects. This means that people in the area who depend on wildlife for food will have an increased risk of PFAS exposure from consuming contaminated wildlife. It also means that the PFAS may have effects on the health of wildlife themselves, affecting ecosystem quality in the area."
She added: "PFAS exposure has many different health risks in people. PFAS exposure has been linked to different types of cancer, high cholesterol, reduced immune system functions, low birth weight, liver damage, thyroid disease, and other health effects. This is just one more example of how PFAS are affecting environmental health, which means that the public also faces increased health risks from exposures. To be clear when I say health risk, there's not a guarantee that any one person will be harmed, but it does mean that their PFAS exposures can lead to increased concentrations in their bodies, which can increase the risk of diseases linked to PFAS exposures."
Graham Peaslee told Newsweek: "This is very concerning to me, because it is just one more way to see impacts way beyond direct exposure to humans. Yes, we can be exposed to PFAS by drinking polluted water ourselves, but what if we don't drink polluted water from an air base 100 miles away, but we eat chicken eggs for breakfast one day, and those chickens (like the tree swallows) were raised at a poultry farm that had some feed contaminated by PFAS. PFOS bioaccumulates nicely into wheat and other grains, even organic grains eaten by organic chicken—all natural processes can provide a source of PFAS that affects us all, far away from the immediate source of the PFAS. This isn't just conjecture, but examples that have been reported in Australia and Italy in the past 12 months, so seeing it in tree swallows across the U.S. just demonstrates it is happening here too."
He added: "Not only do we have to be vigilant on our drinking water, we have to be looking for environmental contamination getting into our food sources from poultry, meat and milk—even beer and wine, from the water. We still believe drinking water to be the largest source for most Americans, but food concentrations are of rising concern and studies like this remind us all of how closely we are connected to our food sources."
Kimberley Garrett told Newsweek: "PFAS detections in bird species certainly concerns me because it demonstrates the scope and scale of contamination. It also has implications for species' health and survival; we are losing birds at an alarming rate so any exposures associated with adverse health outcomes should be addressed."
She added: "Findings like this obviously have implications for conservation biology and extend to human health as well. Animals can be used as sentinels in environmental public health research as their exposures reflect the environments that humans encounter, too. Detections in birds around AFFF-use sites can imply widespread water contamination which can impact people who work, live, and recreate there. Additionally, tree swallows likely aren't the only animal species with high PFAS levels. This has implications for hunting and fishing. Wildlife contamination can disproportionately impact tribal communities that rely on wild game, fish, and marine mammals for food, materials, and traditional practices."
What Happens Next
Sunderland said that military sites "need to be remediated," but that recently the Department of Defense has delayed the timeline for this, sparking significant concern among experts.
Full Interview Below
Newsweek's interview with Jamie DeWitt, director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center at Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences, who was not involved in the study.
Q1: Why do you think these tree swallows have high levels of PFAS chemicals? How are they being exposed to PFAS chemicals?
"As the tree swallows likely live near water and the water is likely contaminated with PFAS from the use of AFFF at the base, that is likely their source of exposure. As they eat aquatic insects as part of their diet, they likely are getting exposed that way. There also may be exposure from drinking the water and possibly from skin exposure, and breathing in some PFAS that can volatilize out of the water."
Q2: Does this concern you? Why/why not?
"It is not surprising. Many PFAS can move from the environment into the bodies of living organisms. This is called bioaccumulation. This is just another example of how PFAS are affecting environmental health. Yes, it is concerning."
Q3: What wider impacts could this finding suggest are happening to surrounding wildlife near military bases?
"This is just further evidence that PFAS have widespread environmental effects. This means that people in the area who depend on wildlife for food will have an increased risk of PFAS exposure from consuming contaminated wildlife. It also means that the PFAS may have effects on the health of wildlife themselves, affecting ecosystem quality in the area."
Q4: How could this translate to impacts on Americans?
"PFAS exposure has many different health risks in people. PFAS exposure has been linked to different types of cancer, high cholesterol, reduced immune system functions, low birth weight, liver damage, thyroid disease, and other health effects. This is just one more example of how PFAS are affecting environmental health, which means that the public also faces increased health risks from exposures. To be clear when I say health risk, there's not a guarantee that any one person will be harmed, but it does mean that their PFAS exposures can lead to increased concentrations in their bodies, which can increase the risk of diseases linked to PFAS exposures."
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