RANTOUL, Ill. (WAND) – Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul closed in 1993. Thirty-two years later, the Air Force is trying to determine where so-called forever chemicals, PFAs, are located and how to handle them.
“I will literally die with large amounts of PFAs remaining in my blood because it doesn’t break down,” veteran Kevin Ferrara, a former Air Force firefighter who served at Chanute, told WAND News. “This stuff is man-made. It’s not natural. It should not be in our blood, and that’s 30 years after I went to Chanute.”
Chanute was in firefighter training school, which used a firefighting foam known as AFFF, an effective foam used in battling aircraft fires. Those training with it, or using it in actual fires, did not realize that AFFF was toxic, possibly linked to cancer and other health issues.
“We were told firefighting foam, it’s perfectly safe. It’s soap and water, and we took it at that,” Ferrara stated. “It stays in the environment forever. Stays in your blood forever. And it’s scary. It’s scary stuff what this stuff does.”
Ferrara is currently the CEO of AFSO21, LCC, and is an advocate for health and safety as well as environmental protection. He has 36 years of fire service experience and serves on numerous boards and committees associated with firefighter health and safety, military exposure to toxic chemicals, and cancer research and education.
Paul Carrol is with the Air Force, which is investigating several sites on the former Chanute base to see exactly where PFA’s contamination is located. He told WAND News the Air Force has taken 496 groundwater samples from a shallow aquifer and 755 soil samples.
“We get those sites investigated, we’ll determine whether there’s a human health risk or ecological risk at each one of those sites,” Carroll said.
A remedial investigation report is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2026. Actual clean-up of the contaminated locations will be sometime after that, once the appropriate steps needed are determined.
“It’s just going to be a long, lengthy process to remediate it once we get things started,” Carroll stated.
The Air Force said PFAs have not impacted the Rantoul drinking water supply and have not been found in local wells.
The problem with PFAs is that they tend to migrate and do not stay in one place.
“So, that chain link fence that separates Chanute from the civilian side, that’s not a very good barrier,” Ferrara said.
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