Israeli government poisons the region with firefighting foams containing PFAS
Israel is also a world leader in the production of deadly brominated flame retardants.
By Pat Elder
January 27, 2024
Petroleum & Energy Infrastructures (Tashan) in Kiryat Haim
An obscure 2022 report by the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection on PFAS provides shocking data on levels of PFAS contamination in the groundwater near oil installations in Haifa, Ashdod, and Kiryat Haim.
The facility pictured above in Kiryat Haim in Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea has contaminated groundwater with 908,000 parts per trillion of PFOS. The levels are 45.4 million times above the U.S. EPA’s interim health advisory for PFOS. The water, soil, air, and fish are believed to be poisoned throughout the region.
The Kiryat Haim facility is owned and operated by Petroleum & Energy Infrastructures, PEI, which is fully owned by the government of Israel. PEI's customers include the Ministry of Defense and the Israeli Electric Corporation, also owned by the government of Israel.
Table 1 Concentrations of PFAS pollutants (in parts per trillion) in groundwater monitoring wells at selected industrial sites.
Bazan and PAZ Ashdod are public companies. Haifa Group is owned by Trance Resource Inc., an American Holding Company.
In 2001, many countries, including Israel, signed the Stockholm Convention, that limits the distribution of persistent organic pollutants, which accumulate in terrestrial and marine systems and have the ability to migrate over long distances. The convention came into effect in 2004 and is updated from time to time.
As of today, the convention has been ratified by 185 countries, including China, the Russian Federation, and the European Union. The United States and Israel have not ratified the treaty.
In 2009 PFOS was added to the Convention, and in 2019, the compound PFOA was added. The convention prohibits the production of firefighting foams containing PFOS and PFOA and limits the import and export of firefighting foams containing PFOS and PFOA. It permits emergency use of existing firefighting foams containing these compounds but prohibits their use for training purposes. Much of the world has switched to using environmentally safe fluorine-free foams.
The Convention requires each party to prohibit and/or eliminate the production and use, as well as the import and export, of a host of deadly chemicals. Parties must take measures to eliminate the production and use of the chemicals with a few specific exemptions for use or production.
In 2020, the Water Authority of Israel reported finding 47 ppt of PFOA and 330 ppt of PFOS in drinking water, but these levels were not thought to be threatening to public health. The U.S. EPA does not regulate PFAS in drinking water, although it has established an interim health advisory of .02 ppt for PFOS and .004 ppt for PFOA.
In 2020 Haaretz reported that the extraction of potable water in the Krayiot region was stopped following the discovery of high dangerous levels of PFAS. The Health Ministry assumed that the pollution comes from the use of this fire-retardant foam at a fuel storage facility in the area.
In 2021 the Israel Fire and Rescue Authority stopped using fire-fighting foam that contains PFOS and PFOA, while allowing other toxic PFAS substitutes to be used. A 2023 pilot study indicated widespread exposure to multiple PFAS compounds in placental tissue of 20 pregnant women in southern Israel. Elevated PFOA placental concentrations were associated with pregnancy-related complications.
Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR’s)
Israel Chemicals Limited - Industrial Products (ICL-IP) is the world’s largest producer of elemental bromine, supplying over 33% of global demand. It manufactures fertilizers and brominated flame retardants that are used in many electronics, furniture, and building materials.
Brominated flame retardants have been routinely added to consumer products, including computers, TVs, electrical cables, carpets, furniture and textiles. Source - Israel Chemical Limited
Israel Chemical Limited says brominated fire retardants are essential for meeting fire safety standards, although the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission moved in 2017 to ban products containing any organohalogen flame retardant. Organohalogens are organic compounds that contain chlorine, bromine, and fluorine atoms. The ban of this toxic class of flame retardants will take many years to implement and there is concern that manufacturers will move from organohalogens to other types of toxic flame retardants.
The Green Science Policy Institute explains, “Flame retardants continually migrate out of furniture and into indoor dust which is ingested by people and pets.” Most upholstered furniture manufactured in the U.S. before 2015 is likely to contain toxic flame retardants.
Signatories to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants are committed to eliminating brominated diphenyl ethers from the recycling streams as swiftly as possible. According to the European Food Safety Authority it difficult to locate reliable up-to-date data on the production of brominated flame retardants, although this is closely linked to the production of bromine. In 2008, the four leading countries were USA (40 %), Israel (24 %), China (20 %) and Jordan (12 %).
There are thousands of Israelis fighting for the environment, for truth, and for justice on many fronts against powerful opposition. We must expose Israeli and American contempt for environmental protections enshrined in international law.
Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR’s) act a lot like PFAS
BFR’s contaminate people, the environment, fish, and wildlife. BFRs have been linked to endocrine disruption and thyroid disfunction. They are associated with immunotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, cancer, and adverse influence on fetal and child development.
BFRs are still found in the bodies of newborn American babies. Children are the most vulnerable to the toxic effects because their brains and other organs are still developing. Like PFAS, hand-to-mouth behavior and play that is close to the floor increases the potential of children to come in contact with harmful chemicals. Several studies demonstrate that exposure is higher in children than adults. See more from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences..
Like we’ve seen with PFAS, fish contains the highest levels of BFRs and dominate the dietary intake of many, while meat, followed by seafood and dairy products accounted for the highest US dietary intake. House dust is also reported as an important source of exposure for children as well as adults.
Like PFAS, we’re also witnessing how regulators have been playing a kind of whack-a-mole game with the chemical manufacturers of flame retardants.
In a new study, published this summer in Environmental Pollution, researchers analyzed the breast milk of 50 U.S. mothers in the Seattle area and detected a total of 25 flame retardants, including 16 replacement chemicals and nine phased-out PBDEs.
An Israeli associate claimed that PFAS is certainly a great threat to the Israeli people, but the toxins seem to have taken all of the air out the room for discussions of other contaminants like BFR’s. It’s interesting! Generally, tuna, salmon, and trout are kosher, and so is caviar from a kosher fish, whereas prawns, crabs, octopus, lobster, and shrimp are not kosher. PFAS and BFR’s don’t discriminate based the species of fish or whether they’re kosher. The chemicals contaminate all fish. We need more study to understand the fate, transport, and bio accumulative nature of these chemicals in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and aquatic life.
Leviticus 11:10 has part of it right, “Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be regarded as unclean by you.” Leviticus apparently didn’t have PFAS and BFR’s in mind. The threat posed to human health by PFAS and BFR’s is rarely discussed in the Israeli media. Low levels of PFAS in drinking water are occasionally dismissed as non-threatening, while coverage of PFAS in fish and food, the most prevalent pathways to human ingestion, is generally taboo.
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