Michigan officials have issued warnings to hunters and fishers to avoid eating deer and fish caught near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base because of PFAS contamination. The Pentagon has extended cleanup timelines by years at Wurtsmith and several other Michigan sites. (Paula Gardner/Bridge Michigan)

Michigan officials have issued warnings to hunters and fishers to avoid eating deer and fish caught near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base because of PFAS contamination. The Pentagon has extended cleanup timelines by years at Wurtsmith and several other Michigan sites.

The Pentagon has delayed cleanups at more than 100 contaminated military installations nationally, including the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center and five others in Michigan.

Michigan’s longest delay is seven years at the former KI Sawyer Air Force Base in Marquette County, where the Pentagon now says remedial investigations won’t be complete until 2033 — seven years later than the public estimate just months ago.

PFAS activists said the unannounced changes fit a pattern of poor transparency about cleanups at military sites.

The U.S. Department of Defense has extended by years cleanup timelines at several Michigan military sites contaminated with PFAS “forever chemicals,” drawing criticisms from lawmakers and community advocates.

With no public announcement, the Pentagon recently updated an online timeline that shows when it expects to complete investigations that are a prerequisite to final cleanup plans for 723 sites nationwide.

The new timeline, which replaced a version from December, includes multi-year delays at more than 100 sites across the country.

At some sites, military officials in charge of cleanups are pursuing stopgap measures to keep contamination from spreading in the meantime. And residents with contaminated drinking water wells have generally been provided with a source of clean water.

But uncontained plumes of polluted groundwater pose a continued risk to humans and the environment.

Other delays include:

— Wurtsmith Air Force Base near Oscoda: two years, to July 2027.

— Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Harrison Township: six years, to September 2033.

— Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center: six years, to 2031.

— Kellogg Air National Guard Base in Battle Creek: six years, to 2031.

— Kincheloe Air Force Base in Chippewa County: four years, to 2031

Timelines for the Camp Grayling National Guard training facility, the Grand Ledge Army Aviation Support Facility and U.S. Army Detroit Arsenal remained unchanged, while a timeline has not been set for a contaminated site in Lansing.

A spokesperson for the Department of Defense, which President Donald Trump is seeking to rename as the Department of War, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Called “forever chemicals” because they don’t readily break down in the environment, PFAS — or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — have been linked to cancer, thyroid problems and a host of other health challenges. Contamination is widespread at military sites, where firefighting foam containing the chemicals was widely used in training exercises for decades.

The delays, first reported by the New York Times, drew criticism from U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Bay City and an advocate for faster and more transparent cleanups.

“Communities impacted by PFAS chemicals have been waiting decades for cleanup, and they’ve been kept in the dark,” McDonald Rivet said in a statement Tuesday. “When cleanup timelines change, residents deserve to know, and the Department of Defense needs to do a better job communicating.”

Advocates for PFAS-contaminated communities also panned the Defense Department’s failure to alert the public, saying it fits a longstanding pattern.

“That’s their strategy,” said Cathy Wusterbarth, an Oscoda resident who has long advocated for a thorough cleanup at Wurtsmith.

Delays have been routine in the 15 years since Michigan first began learning about PFAS contamination at its military sites. At Wurtsmith, for instance, Air Force officials once estimated remedial investigations would be complete in 2022. After repeated delays, the estimate is now 2027.

Still, Wusterbarth said she’s optimistic about a recent decision to create a technical workgroup for the site and an earlier plan to install filtration systems to stop PFAS from spreading while officials craft a final cleanup plan.

Construction schedules for those filters are now “the timelines we’re really focusing on,” Wusterbarth said.

She credited the recent strides at Wurtsmith to persistent advocacy from lawmakers and people living near the polluted site. Several other contaminated military sites in Michigan lack such an organized citizen push for faster and more thorough cleanups.

“My message is, you’ve got to have community advocacy,” Wusterbarth said. “They are not going to do the right thing unless you advocate for it.”

Increasing the speed and transparency of PFAS cleanups at Michigan military sites has been an issue of bipartisan concern among Michigan’s congressional delegation. In June, McDonald Rivet teamed up with U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, to add provisions to the U.S. House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act that would require annual reporting on cleanup efforts and a public dashboard tracking progress.

While the years-long delays at several Michigan sites are concerning, affected communities should press cleanup leaders for their reasoning, said Tony Spaniola, who owns a home near Wurtsmith and co-chairs the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network.

At Wurtsmith, he said, local advocates were informed of delays months ago because they have spent years pushing for greater transparency. There, he said, the slowdown stems from a recent change in Air Force leadership that community advocates support.

Elsewhere, delays could be caused by anything from new contamination discoveries or shifting cleanup standards to the Defense Department’s struggle to manage a ballooning list of polluted sites.

Bottom line, Spaniola said, the “the service branches need to do a better job of explaining themselves.”