In 2007, Renee Frugoli of Southampton heard the words that no parent ever wants to hear — “Your child has cancer.”

And it wasn’t just any cancer. Frugoli told us that her three-year-old daughter Felicia was diagnosed with stage 5 Wilms Tumor, a rare kidney cancer primarily found in children. Thankfully, Felicia won her battle against the aggressive tumor the following year.

In 2013, Frugoli attended a meeting at a local school for her friend who couldn’t make it. That friend also had a daughter who died from bone cancer. The meeting was about water pollution in the area from polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a chemical that has polluted wells throughout the nation. The chemical is commonly found in pesticides, personal care products, fire-resistant products and more.

At the meeting, they mentioned that PFAS were linked to kidney cancer. Thats when Frugoli became suspicious that the cancer her daughter had may have been caused by her drinking water.

“I thought I was doing something good by drinking water when all these years, and I could’ve been the cause of why my child got kidney cancer.”

Scientists are currently divided on whether or not PFAS can cause cancer. But in September, the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology conducted a study that showed women with prior diagnoses of melanoma, ovarian cancer or uterine cancer had higher levels of “forever chemicals” and other toxic compounds in their blood.

In 2011, it was revealed that the former Naval Air Development Center in Warminster, Bucks County, and the nearby Willow Grove Naval Air Base and Air Reserve Station in Horsham, Montgomery County, were among the bases contaminated by PFAS. A few years later, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency test revealed that a well in the area had PFAS levels of 2,740 parts per trillion, which is nearly 40 times the limit recommended by the EPA.

A water crisis then ensued. Shortly after the report was released, the Navy offered to switch over residents in the area to the public water system, free of charge. According to a report from USA Today from 2016, 52 homes have been connected to the system around Warminster and Horsham.

The contamination wasn’t limited to private wells. In Warminster Township, private wells fed into the public water system, and many of those wells were found to have high levels of PFAS.

To this day, multiple homes are still not hooked up to the system that should be, but aren’t being funded by the Navy because the levels measured in their wells weren’t extremely high. Many of these homes rely on bottled water, and a few have been abandoned. Property values in the area have suffered as a result.

Unfortunately, the pollution is now spreading into the public water system. In August, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report that said PFAS were found at high levels in the Neshaminy Creek in Langhorne. Much of Lower Bucks County relies on this creek for drinking water.

Beginning in the 1970s, firefighting foam, which is similar to the substance used in fire extinguishers, was tested at multiple military bases and airports to put out fires on airplanes and explosives. The foam then sank into soils and polluted wells surrounding the testing sites.

But what has angered people the most is the fact that producers of PFAS, including DuPont and 3M, knew of its dangerous effects as far back as the 1960s, according to an investigation from the National Institutes of Health. Yet they continued to produce the substance at dangerous levels for another 40 years before the EPA asked them to stop in 2000.

In 1981, multiple female employees were relocated from a DuPont plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, after female coworkers had given birth to severely deformed babies. “One of them (gave birth) to a baby with eye defects and just a single nostril; another to a baby who had eye and tear duct defects; and a third with C8 in its cord blood,” according to TIME Magazine.

C8, a series of chemicals that contain high levels of PFAS, were produced at this plant. Yet TIME reported that DuPont kept it a secret as to why the women were being relocated. The report from the National Institutes of Health says that DuPont and 3M conducted multiple studies with animals that showed severe defects when PFAS were present in their blood. When PFAS were found in water sources throughout West Virginia in 1991, the companies released a joint statement saying “According to studies by DuPont and 3M Corporation, C8 has no known toxic or ill health effects in humans at concentration levels detected.”

The floodgates opened in 2000 when a judge ordered DuPont to hand over nearly 100,000 documents related to their studies on PFAS to Bob Bilott, a lawyer who was representing a farmer in Parkersburg whose cows he suspected were being sickened by runoff from a landfill DuPont built next to his farm.

Although that case settled for an undisclosed sum, Bilott compiled a 900-page report on his findings and released it to multiple environmental agencies. Shortly afterward, Bilott used the money from the settlements of the prior cases to fund a study of 70,000 West Virginians that involved taking blood samples in exchange for a $400 check.

It took a grueling seven years for the results of the study to be concluded. Finally, in 2011, the researchers released their findings, which stated that “there was a ‘‘probable link’’ between PFOA (a form of PFAS) and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis.”

Frugoli and her twin children were part of a similar study taken in 2018 from people around Warminster and Willow Grove. In 2022, individual results were released to people who showed many had high levels of PFAS in their blood, according to the Bucks County Courier Times. But an overall evaluation of the results has yet to be published, as the Department of Defense is planning on testing more people in the area.

Frugoli said her family’s results showed that “we are all in the range of moderate, and have to be tested for certain things sooner than later. It’s crazy because a lot of the specialists we go to don’t know what it (PFAS) is. It’s mindblowing to me!”

DuPont did not respond to the Centurion’s request for comment on the situation.

Larry Menkes of Warminster was the co-founder of the Warminster Environmental Authority. It was formed years before the public found out about the PFAS contamination, but there were already concerns about Warminster NADC when it was deemed a superfund site shortly before it closed in 1997.

Menkes explained when the authority found out about the contamination, the township manager at the time encouraged them not to deal with it as it would make it look like they were the ones responsible. “I thought that was bulls–t and I ignored him.”

Menkes himself has stage four bladder cancer that is currently in remission. His father-in-law, who was stationed at Warminster NADS just after World War II, died of gastric cancer 25 years ago. And his wife had an aggressive form of skin cancer and thyroid problems.

Many of the lawsuits regarding PFAS have been against the producers, DuPont and 3M. But Menkes and others locally are going a different direction, by being involved in a class action lawsuit against the Navy.

“I think the Navy is the logical choice to sue because they were the ones that controlled the use of firefighting foam to practice with. And I’m sure someone in the Navy knew as far back as 1940 that this stuff was toxic to humans,” said Menkes.

Hope Grosse, from Warminster, is one of the most prominent advocates of PFAS contamination in the area and the founder of the nonprofit BuxMont Water Coalition. Grosse grew up right across the street from the Warminster base. In 1992, she was diagnosed with stage four Melanoma in her lymph nodes.

She explained that, unlike other parts of the country where PFAS contamination came from the factories that produced it, our area is dealing with contamination from the use of the product. That complicates the situation as to whether the federal government or the producers are at fault.

“The Department of Defense denies, delays and lies,” she said.

But what do people want DuPont, 3M and the federal government to do about this? Grosse said a starting point would be to put filters on every public water system, and anyone with private water should be tested to see how much toxic chemicals are in their body. She said that 95 to 99 percent of PFAS contamination is removed from water with a reverse osmosis water filter.

Unfortunately, political turmoil and bureaucracy have prevented much of this progress from happening. A report from the American Water Works Association says that it could cost at least $10 billion to clean up PFAS and install water filters on public systems.

Many people want DuPont and 3M held responsible. In June, The Associated Press reported that DuPont and two of its spin-off companies, Chemours and Corteva, reached a $1.8 billion deal to compensate water providers for PFAS contamination found in water.

But the case doesn’t settle the thousands of personal cases against the companies from people who may have been sickened by PFAS. Also in June, Pennsylvania sued DuPont and Chemours for marketing PFAS “firefighting foam manufacturers in the state despite knowing for decades they posed health dangers,” according to the AP. The state is seeking restitution for cleanup costs at contaminated sites across the Philadelphia area.

In a further blow to activists, the Sixth Circuit Court tossed a lawsuit on Nov. 27 against DuPont and 3M seeking restitution for those affected by PFAS in Ohio. The court ruled that Kevin Hardwick, a firefighter from Ohio, has no standing in the case. He is being represented by Mr. Bilott.

There is also growing anger over a corporate restructuring of DuPont in 2015 that many say was done to avoid paying lawsuits related to PFAS. NBC News reports that the company unloaded its lawsuit obligations to smaller spin-off companies, such as Chemours and Corteva, that they purposefully underfunded to avoid paying debts.

But Grosse just wants her water to be clean. “Why are we wasting all this time trying to figure out who’s got what and let’s put these filtration systems and stop wasting time and money. Because people’s lives are being ruined by drinking water, like who would have thought? We’re not a third-world country for God’s sake.”