MINOT, N.D. – The Air Force has found residue of a harmful and possibly carcinogenic substance at intercontinental ballistic missile facilities at Minot Air Force Base.
According to Air Force officials, military bio-environmental experts found elevated levels of P-C-Bs in an underground launch support building at the base.
The Air Force has now released findings on PCB levels at all three of its ICBM bases. Two, Minot and Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. had levels that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s acceptable limit, while the third, F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming., had trace amounts of PCBs below the EPA’s acceptable limit.
Air Force Global Strike Command has ordered clean-ups for all three bases.
The findings at Minot were outlined in a memo from Col. Tory Woodard, the commander of the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine which is leading the study.
Three hundred total samples—air samples and swipe tests—were taken at Minot, with 30 returning traces of PCBs. The swipe tests involve gauze wetted with a solution run over surfaces and then analyzed for suspected contaminants. No air samples detected PCBs, Woodard’s memo states. Twenty-eight of the 30 samples that detected PCBs were below limits.
Two swipe samples, however, had levels above EPA limits—both in the same facility, a Launch Control Equipment Building.
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