if you live in two Shore area towns the U.S Navy may be trying to get a hold of you to test your drinking water Naval officials are beginning to sample water wells at Homes located near the naval weapons station Earl they're looking for what's known as pfas toxic chemicals that have been used in materials on the base for years and could potentially be contaminating private Wells nearby senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports for decades military bases across the U.S supplied firefighters with this flame-suppressing foam to extinguish blazes and aircraft hangars and vehicles it worked but researchers later discovered it also contained cancer-causing chemicals like pfas that could linger forever in the environment spreading to contaminate drinking water it's a potential problem at Naval weapons station Earl in Monmouth County we did find a couple sites on board the base installation that had greater than the now allowable EPA limits assembly parts per trillion on our site and so we want to make sure that going off-site that there was no issues with the public at large the Navy's concerned pfas pollution could have migrated in groundwater from sources on base particularly one training site near the border with Howell and from a building close to Colts Neck neighborhoods now homes within a mile of those sources can get their well water tested for free by the Navy until March 10th I would absolutely ask to have my well tested because at the end of the day you want to make sure that your drinking water is safe I was always suspicious that there could be some kind of chemicals or sun something hazardous material down there John fertucci lives in Colts Neck he's one of about 150 residents living in the affected area near Earl who received a letter offering free tests and last week attended an open house hosted at the station he agreed to get his well water tested my first reaction was was my water filtration system that I have you know protect us but we you know and then the other thing is our word about the pool I'm worried about vegetables that I may have grown in the yard that we watered could that have been contaminated bathing showering experts say it's people who drink water tainted by pfas that have experienced a host of health problems that included some very serious health impacts such as testicular cancer kidney cancer ulcerative colitis pre-eclampsia or high blood pressure and other conditions during pregnancy the EPA said its pfas Health advisory level at 70 parts per trillion and the Navy will only flagwells exceeding that level although New Jersey's limits much lower at 13 to 14 parts per trillion for two specific chemicals in the pfas group they are pfoa or perfluoroctinoic acid and pfos or perfluoroctane sulfonate and theoretically is the fact that is Navy policy right now and then each state has their own policy and so the Navy's policy across the board has been 70 parts per trillion it's the same level the Navy employed in 2016 when it tested 29 residential Wells for pfas a half mile off base and found four with levels under 70 parts per trillion but two Wells tested above that so immediately what we do will provide drinking water we'll provide bottled water for drinking water and cooking and then from there we'll develop a plan it'll take about a month to process these new tests the Navy says it'll pay for long-term Solutions I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight News [Music]