City alleges that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has leached PFAS into its water system.
The City of Dayton, Ohio has hired Shook Construction as construction manager at risk for a planned $350-million PFAS removal facility, touted as the largest such dedicated facility in the U.S., while it also seeks reimbursement for project costs from neighboring Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the U.S. Dept. of Defense for alleged leaching of “forever chemical” into the city’s water system.
The construction team for the project, planned at the city’s 70-year-old Ottawa Water Treatment Plant,also includes Black & Veatch and Tetra Tech as design consultants. Construction is set to start this year with completion of the PFAS facility in 2029, and a complete retrofit of the treatment plant set for 2031.
The city filed a lawsuit in March against the base and DOD seeking compensation for the costs of retrofitting the facility, alleging that firefighting foam and other toxic substances it used have leaked into groundwater over decades, increasing levels at its Ottawa plant to three to four times higher than what future federal environmental standards will allow.
The planned ion exchange PFAS facility would be built in the same footprint as the treatment plant on the northeast side of Dayton, near the northeast edge of downtown along the Mad River. The project will address contamination in river well field that supplies the treatment plant.
Ion exchange PFAS treatment is a water purification technology that uses porous polymer resin beads to capture and remove PFAS chemicals from water.
“PFAS levels at the Ottawa Water Treatment Plant consistently measure above the federal maximum containment level of 4.0 [parts per trillion] for PFOS,” said Megan O’Leary, senior projects administrator for the city’s water department.
The U.S. Environmental Protction Agency issued new regulations in April 2024 setting limits on PFAS in drinking water through Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) of 4 ppt for two PFAS compounds, PFOA and PFOS, and 10 ppt for PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA (commonly known as GenX chemicals) in drinking water. However, in May this year, EPA proposed extending the five-year compliance period for PFOA and PFOS for utilities that needed more time, and rolled back requirements for the other types, including GenX.
The city notes on its website various actions it has taken over the years to address the PFAS contamination including continuously sampling groundwater, monitoring PFAS plumes originating from the base, requesting added base remediation projects to cut off the PFAS plumes, and continuing to seek funding opportunities—including ongoing litigation to have remediation costs covered by PFAS manufacturers and other responsible parties instead of ratepayers.
According to WYS0 public radio, the city has previously spent $14 million to reduce PFAS levels, including a system to blend water between two treatment plants.
O’Leary said the dispute between the city and the military began in 2016 when the city discovered the contamination.
Over the next decade, she said, the city engaged the base, federal EPA and the Ohio EPA «to develop a collaborative regional remediation strategy to address the PFAS plume migrating from [the base] to the city’s well field.”
Noting pending litigation, she declined to comment on the lawsuit.
John Musto, Dayton’s deputy law director, told the Dayton Daily News in 2025 that city representatives meet regularly with base officials on the PFAS issue, but “selection of a final remedy for the city’s water supply has been for naught,” due to DOD policies that “did not support such discussions.”
The 88th Air Base Wing public affairs office said in an email that “we are taking aggressive, proactive actions under federal cleanup laws to address past per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) releases, investing in advanced research and development, and maintaining transparent communication with the public and local stakeholders.”
The Air Force estimates it has invested over $63 million since 2014 at the base to address PFAS impacts, including active monitoring and sampling, performing site assessments and detailed investigations to locate, characterize and define the nature and extent of PFAS in the surrounding environment at 26 sites; removing a legacy firefighting foam containing PFAS from building fire suppression systems and emergency response vehicles; and performing water treatment mitigation, which entails operating treatment systems specifically designed to extract and remove PFAS from groundwater and surface water at two locations. Three additional treatment systems to extract and remove PFAS from groundwater also are planned.
“The Dept. of the Air Force recognizes the critical importance of this issue to human health and the environment, and we remain dedicated to executing our cleanup mission in a deliberative, holistic and transparent manner,” the public affairs officer spokesperson said.
The Ottawa plant generates 96 million gal per day of drinking water.
Tetra Tech said in a news release that, in collaboration with the city and stakeholders, ”our water treatment experts are developing high-efficiency designs that will address PFAS regulations and aging infrastructure, while minimizing long-term operating costs.”
Tetra Tech’s portion of the work is estimated at $200 million.
