Montco aviation museum’s expansion plans have been grounded for 13 years due to PFAS

Mark Hurwitz, president of operations for the Wings of Freedom Aviation Museum, proudly explained on a recent day the history of a F-4A Phantom bomber used during the Vietnam War, one of 22 planes and helicopters on exhibit.

He stopped and gestured with an arm toward the back of the property.

The museum has a grand vision, he said: a new, much larger, wing-shaped building with large windows set on 13 acres, more than double the current grounds. Most aircraft, a mix of civilian and military, would be moved inside, some hanging from the ceiling. Plans include a veterans memorial. The cost could be in the tens of millions of dollars, but eager donors are lined up to support the expansion.

They’ll have to wait. It could be two years before plans can move forward. It could be five. It could be 10. After 13 years of waiting, museum officials still don’t know.

The museum and its grounds are set on more than 900 acres that formerly housed the Naval Air Station-Joint Base Reserve Willow Grove (NAS-JRB). More than a decade ago, compounds of man-made PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” were found throughout the base, grounding all plans until a cleanup is deemed complete through a process with the Navy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

No running water or indoor plumbing is allowed at the museum because of the contamination.

Still, the museum, located in Horsham, Montgomery County, off Route 611 (Easton Road), draws plenty of guests who amble on tours with docents, peering at displays of flights suits used in various wars, a D.A.S.H. drone, and a Bell “Sioux” medical evacuation helicopter, like those used in the TV show M*A*S*H, suspended from the ceiling. Guests buy T-shirts, toys, and other flight-related mementos from the all-volunteer staff.

Not being able to grow is frustrating, Hurwitz said.

“We continue to operate, not only just staying alive, but acquiring more aircraft incredibly enough,” he said. “But in order to get the donations to fund a large capital project, we need to have the property, and right now we don’t have it. There’s a lot of interest from different people with the six-figure, seven-figure donations. But I can understand why someone in that position would not want to donate a million dollars if they’re not sure that the project is going to take place.”

The museum’s history — and future — is inextricably tied to the base.

Harold F. Pitcairn, whom the museum is named after, was an aviation pioneer of the early to mid-20th century. Pitcairn experimented with helicopters, designed racing planes, and in the 1920s built the Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwing that carried mail along the East Coast and was a forerunner to Eastern Air Lines. Pitcairn bought farmland on Route 611, where he built a hangar and airstrip. Amelia Earhart flew a Pitcairn autogiro over Willow Grove in 1931.

Pitcairn sold the land to the U.S. Navy in 1942 during World War II, and it became Naval Air Station Willow Grove. The department added land, bringing the base to 1,142 acres.

Congress placed the station on its Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) list in 2005, and it was closed in 2011. The still-active Air Reserve Station Willow Grove remains on 200 acres.

After the closure, the Horsham Land Redevelopment Authority (HLRA) created a plan to turn the base’s remaining 900 acres into a mixed-use development that would include office parks, a hotel and conference center, low- and moderate-density residential units, and a town center that could include a school, movie theater, restaurants, recreation, and open space. Old Naval buildings and housing are still scattered about the base.

That plan calls for the aviation museum, which opened in 2004, to be moved to an adjacent 13.1-acre parcel. The museum is operated by the Delaware Valley Historical Aircraft Association and is sponsored by Montgomery County.

After the base’s closure, the ownership of the vast tract was to be transferred from the Navy to Horsham. At the time, it had already been declared a Superfund site because of existing contamination.

As the property awaits approval from the Navy and EPA for cleanup efforts, the transfer remains in limbo.

The transfer process under BRAC started out complex, given that the base was designated a Superfund site in the 1990s. But the process really got bogged down when per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were discovered throughout the base in 2011. The PFAS in groundwater came from firefighting foam, which was widely used for training on the base, and to extinguish fires in planes that caught fire.

Similar issues were found at the former Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster, an 824-acre facility in neighboring Bucks County.

» READ MORE: Tainted: How Navy bases contaminated Pa. drinking water

PFAS, if ingested, accumulate in the human body and are associated with problems with people’s immune and endocrine systems and raising their cholesterol. But the effects are not yet fully known. They also persists on land and in water, hence the name “forever chemical.”

In 2014, the EPA and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) began to evaluate exposures to PFAS in public and private drinking water sources near the Willow Grove station.

PFAS were found to have contaminated public water supply wells near the former bases. The contamination was found in Horsham and Warrington Townships and affected thousands of users of public water supplies and hundreds of users of private drinking water wells.

The Horsham Water and Sewer Authority, which serves 7,800 customers, had to take several wells out of service and add PFAS-specific filtration, after two PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA, were found at elevated levels. Sampling over the past several years shows contamination continues.

The Navy is in charge of testing and cleanup. But no land transfers can occur without EPA approval.

The EPA declined to comment, referring questions to the Navy. Questions sent to a Navy spokesperson had gone unanswered as of Friday.

» READ MORE: What does it take to get ‘forever chemicals’ out of drinking water? Big new systems that you might have to help pay for.

The EPA proposed more stringent national PFAS drinking-water standards last year, said Mike Shinton, executive director of the Horsham redevelopment group. That further complicated the transfer. The new rule would require public drinking-water systems to reduce the amount of PFAS to near zero.

“We continue to negotiate with the Navy to see if there are portions of the base which can be transferred earlier,” Shinton said. “If the EPA publishes those standards here in later spring, that will give a little more clarity.”

The Navy has given more than $22 million to the Horsham Water and Sewer Authority to address the issue.

Meanwhile, the museum waits. About 10,000 historically significant artifacts cannot be displayed because of lack of space.

Hurwitz said he’s been unsuccessful trying to arrange a meeting in Horsham offices with Gov. Josh Shapiro, other elected officials, and the EPA to accelerate the land transfer. Shapiro was raised in Montgomery County and represented its residents in several political positions before becoming governor last year.

“He visited years ago when he was a local elected official, and I’d like him to come back,” Hurwitz said. “For a small space, we show a lot. But there’s a lot more we can show.”