Watch: National PFAS News and Hopes What’s in Store for the West Plains?
Speaker: Alissa Cordner, the National PFAS Project and Whitman College
Monday, November 18, 2024
At the HUB in Airway Heights, on Spokane’s West Plains
Spokane- Since 2017, when PFAS from firefighting operations at Fairchild Air Force
Base was discovered in the municipal water of Airway Heights, Fairchild engineers have
been assessing the groundwater contamination near the Base. Throughout the West
Plains, hundreds of private wells have been contaminated by PFAS “forever chemicals”
from firefighting foam, and many homes have received filter systems from the Air Force.
The main flows of contaminated groundwater travel northeast towards the Spokane
River, away from the Medical Lake area, but recent well testing and surface water west
and south of the Base causes additional concern in areas long considered upstream
from Fairchild.
These PFAS compounds may lead to severe health risks, including increased
cholesterol levels, decreased birth weights, decreased immune response to vaccines,
changes in liver enzymes that indicate liver damage, increased risk of blood pressure
problems during pregnancy, increased risk of thyroid disease and increased risk of
testicular and kidney cancer, per the Washington State Department of Health.
Nearly a thousand American Communities across the country grapple now with the
health and economic impacts of these “forever chemicals”.
Dr. Cordner’s talk will explain the national context of PFAS contamination, including
scientific advances, drinking water safety regulations, and funding for testing and
cleanup activities. Only the highest levels of federal policy improvements and cleanup
funding have the power to address PFAS across the country. Washington is a national
leader in environmental stewardship, but State and local funding is not sufficient.
Featured Guest Speaker: Alissa Cordner, the National PFAS Project and Whitman College
Alissa Cordner is Associate Professor of Sociology at Whitman College in Walla Walla,
WA. She teaches courses in sociology and environmental studies, including
Environmental Sociology, Environmental Health, Social Research Methods, Sociology
of Health and Illness and Environmental Justice.
Professor Cordner is the co-director of the PFAS Project Lab (PFAS are per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances) with researchers at Northeastern University. The lab focuses
on social and scientific questions related to perfluorinated chemicals. This project
engages Whitman students every year as research assistants. Alissa also serves on the
National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Management (NASEM) Standing
Committee on the Use of Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions.
Her research focuses on environmental sociology, the sociology of risk and disasters,
environmental health and justice, and politics and participation. Her two major areas of
research are the social and political aspects of wildfire risk management and the social
and scientific discoveries of perfluorinated chemicals.
Her award-winning 2016 book, Toxic Safety: Flame Retardants, Chemical
Controversies, and Environmental Health, examines how environmental health risks are
defined and contested, in the face of unavoidable scientific uncertainty and competing,
powerful stakeholders. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research on a controversial class
of chemicals used as flame retardants, Toxic Safety shows that stakeholders’ strategic
interpretations and presentations of scientific rationality, uncertainty and evidence
directly impact environmental and public health.
Her published articles appear in the journals Environmental Sociology, The American
Journal of Sociology, Health Affairs, Social Movement Studies, Environmental Science
& Technology, Social Studies of Science, the Journal of Environmental Studies and
Sciences, Teaching Sociology and Social Science & Medicine.
This event is funded by the Public Participation Program of the Washington State
Department of Ecology, but not necessarily endorsed by the agency.