WA ramps up pressure on Army over PFAS contamination near Yakima

SELAH CIVIC CENTER, Yakima County — Years after a group of substances often described as forever chemicals were found in drinking water near Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s Yakima Training Center, families are still waiting for water filtration systems, and state officials are frustrated with the Army’s “pattern of slow or no release of information” about the contamination.

Washington state officials have ramped up pressure on the Army since Gov. Bob Ferguson was sworn in and appointed Casey Sixkiller, a former regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to lead the state Department of Ecology early this year.

For decades, the Yakima Training Center used the chemicals — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — in firefighting drills, and they leached into the ar