Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Effects of chaff still a mystery

Fibers thinner than a human hair have fallen from military aircraft across Nevada and around other military installations, but scientists know little about their effects on human health.

Called chaff, the material is dropped as an airborne radar-detection countermeasure by military jet fighters.

Made of extremely fine fibers of aluminum-coated silica, a typical burst or bundle of chaff contains about 2.1 million hair-sized fiberglass strands.

Rancher Joe Dahl, chairman for military issues for the environmental organization People for the West, said Nevadans living near Fallon had until recently seen chaff as blue clumps.

"Then we saw yellow," he said, speaking from a cellular phone on his central Nevada ranch. The yellow, it turns out, is used in combat, while blue is part of training missions.

"Chaff is clearly litter and littering on public lands is illegal," said Lahsha Johnston, regional associate for the Wilderness Society.

Grace Bukowski, spokes woman for the rural Alliance for Military Accountability, said, "The health risks and ecological damage associated with inhalation, ingestion and widespread dispersal of chaff has never been independently researched."

That is why the alliance's 25 national organizations are asking governors and congressional representatives for help, Bukowski said.

Chaff is used by the Navy near Fallon and by the Air Force at its Nellis base near Las Vegas.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection recently searched Defense Department documents concerning the risks of the material. The military is concerned about how inhalable those chaff particles could be and whether dropping it on public and private lands is considered solid waste.

There is little information on the amounts of chaff, but an estimated 10 trillion fibers have been dropped on Nevada alone over the last 20 years.

"The long-term effects of chaff are unknown," the state report concluded.

Besides humans inhaling chaff, the state is also worried about wildlife or livestock inhaling or eating it, as well as birds using it in nests or animals getting chaff imbedded in paws.

The Army in 1992 concluded that further study was needed to determine long-term risks and chronic exposure potential.

University of Maryland and University of Delaware researchers asked that the Navy study chaff after a lab experiment in which the fibers killed 48-hour-old oyster larvae.

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