Numerous abandoned buildings still sit on the 2,125 acres of the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois. Some are boarded up — others have broken doors and shattered windows that allow for easy access.
Broken windows on the side of an abandoned building on the base. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
The exterior of Grissom Hall at the Arends Boulevard entrance. A faded sign above the entrance reads “Grissom Hall.” Photo by Jordan Butler. 
The exterior of the 909 Pacesetter Dr. building, featuring “Entrance 5,” with boarded-up glass doors. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
A sign and table lay abandoned outside. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
Overgrowth surrounds the former Chanute Transition Center. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
Overgrowth surrounds the former Chanute Transition Center. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
Broken windows on the side of an abandoned building on the base. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
Broken windows on the side of an abandoned building on the base. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal.
Overgrown trees surround the abandoned buildings, and the sign atop the Chanute Transition Center was ripped up. Through one of the broken windows of former dormitory Faktor Hall, where airmen-in-training stayed, a bedroom appeared untouched for years.
Inside the dormitory, lights and debris dangle from the ceiling and peeling paint and graffiti cover the walls. In many rooms are various degrees of damage and disrepair. Ceiling tiles were missing in some, while others are simply trashed and filled with mattresses.
A hallway is falling apart in an abandoned dorm. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
Mattresses remain in an abandoned dorm. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
A dirty dorm room can be seen through a broken window. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
A rusted heater sits outside the Pacesetter Drive entrance of Grissom Hall, just before the second set of double doors. The door next to it has peeling paint, showing signs of decay. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
The ceiling inside Grissom Hall is collapsing, with multiple sections falling apart. A clear sight line to the pipes and inside the ceiling reveals damage. Photo by Jordan Butler.
Most of the Air Force base transferred to the village of Rantoul in October 2023 after decades and hundreds of millions in cost to clean up toxic chemicals and asbestos after its closure in 1993. A small part of base also went to the University of Illinois for its research on driverless cars, according to a legal agreement.
At the time, the Air Force declared “Mission Accomplished” in a press release — but it acknowledged there’s still at least $76 million more of toxic clean-up to do and it is unclear what the plan is for the many abandoned and deteriorating buildings.
Paul Carroll, the Air Force’s environmental coordinator for the Chanute clean-up, confirmed its investments in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess.
“As of the end of [the fiscal year 2023], we invested over … $200 million on cleanup actions and our cost to complete as of the end of the last fiscal year is $76.4 [million],” Carroll said in late November.
According to Carroll, since the re-acquisition of the land, the Village of Rantoul has cleaned up the remaining asbestos at Chanute. The air force had previously cleaned up asbestos, such as removing asbestos-lined steam lines in 2009.
Rantoul officials could not be reached for comment despite repeated calls about any plans for the buildings on the base.
Currently, private businesses and other agencies have taken up uncontaminated parts of the base for various uses.
Base ‘pioneered’ toxic chemicals used to fight fires
The base was primarily used as an Air Force firefighter training facility when it opened, Carroll said. Because of this, a toxic fire extinguisher known as aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) was used at Chanute.
“Chanute pioneered the use of AFFF for the Air Force in 1970,” Carroll said. “It was a huge firefighting training activity going on there for several decades before the base closed.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from July 2024 said exposure to these chemicals has been linked to many different cancers and other health issues.
“AFFF contains per-and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which may have adverse effects on human health, including effects on fetal development, the immune system, and the thyroid,” it said.
PFAS are nicknamed forever chemicals due to their chemical structure which takes them hundreds of thousands of years to break down.
The GAO report said the foam is the most effective way to eliminate jet fuel fires and the Department of Defense (DoD) is attempting to find alternative fire-extinguishing chemicals that are not as harmful to human health, but it has yet to find something as effective as the foam.
Hundreds of bases report contamination across U.S.
Carroll said forever chemicals are still prevalent at Chanute despite the work that has already been done. This is a problem in other military bases across the country as well.
“There are several locations where [AFFF] was used and several locations where we’ve got releases of that we’ve got to take care of,” he said. “A lot of our Air Force bases have similar issues, but this was the only Air Force base that was the primary firefighting school for the Air Force over most of those years.”
A wave of lawsuits from veterans alleging the chemicals caused their cancers has ensued with most being consolidated in federal court.
A school bus filled with children drives past the 909 Pacesetter Dr. building. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
A wide view of the exterior of the 909 Pacesetter Dr. building, showing “Entrance 4” and most the building’s external length. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
The interior of the first set of double doors at “Entrance 4” of 909 Pacesetter Dr. The walls and doors have peeling paint, a vent cover is removed, exposing pipes and rusted mechanics, and the floor is littered with paint chips and leaves. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
A close-up of the cracked glass on the “Entrance 4” door at 909 Pacesetter Dr. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
The interior of the 909 Pacesetter Dr. building, filled with stacks of boxes wrapped in plastic. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
A street sign outside the 909 Pacesetter Dr. building at the intersection of Pacesetter Drive and Arends Boulevard. Photo by Jordan Butler.
Chanute was established in 1917 initially as a training school for the United States Air Corps. In the 1970s, the base transitioned into an Air Force firefighting school. Because of the heavy use of foam and the discoveries of its toxicity, Chanute was selected to close in 1988 during a Base Reconstruction and Closure (BRAC) round by the U.S. Air Force, but officially closed in 1993.
Chanute remains one of 722 military bases in the United States that have reports of PFAS contamination as of September 2024.
In 2000, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed that Chanute be placed on the National Priority List (NPL) for superfund sites. Due to prior cleanup efforts by the Air Force, the EPA withdrew their proposal in 2021.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) also is involved in oversight of the clean-up. In an email sent in July 2024 by Michael Dura, a legal investigator for the agency, Dura said “85% of the base is remediated.” The emails were obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request.
The interior of a second-floor room in the 821 Arends Blvd. building, facing Commerce Drive. The room contains mattresses and deteriorating furniture. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
The exterior of the 821 Arends Blvd. building, showing multiple broken windows, overgrown vines, and broken glass scattered on the ground. The view faces Commerce Drive. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
A deteriorating chair and a torn mattress sit outside the 821 Arends Blvd. building, facing Commerce Drive. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
Broken glass from shattered windows is mixed with dirt and debris, surrounded by fallen leaves and overgrown vines. Photo by Jordan Butler. 
A rust-covered vent with moss buildup attached to the exterior of the 821 Arends Blvd. building, facing Commerce Drive. Photo by Jordan Butler.
Chanute looked vastly different before its closure, Tonya Carter, a Rantoul resident who grew up on the base, said in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess.
“We had people of all different walks of life, coming from different countries, short-term and long-term,” she said. “It allowed me to look at life very differently.”
She said there was strong opposition from the community when the news broke that the base was closing.
“Our community back then took the time to work for most kids’ best interests … you felt like they cared enough about your well-being,” Carter said. “There was a lot of effort going into not closing it, even to the tune of, ‘don’t be cruel to the town of Rantoul.’”
Carter said she believes more could have been done to prevent the base from getting to the state it is in today.
“When we think that the government needs to take care of the environment, the government is us, the people,” she said. “We the people like to come in when the catastrophe has happened, but there was some preventative work that we could have done.”
Scattered furniture from former dormitories underneath the overhang of an abandoned building at Chanute on Nov. 21, 2024. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
Tree stumps, chopped logs and and other materials lie outside under the overhang of an abandoned building at Chanute. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
Mattresses stacked up underneath the overhang of an abandoned building at Chanute on Nov. 21, 2024. These mattresses were used by families and Air Force members who used to live on the base when it was open from 1917-1993. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal. 
The shell of a Minuteman II missile at the entrance of Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul on Nov. 21, 2024. Photo by Elissa Eaton and Said Nonoal.
Even though Rantoul now owns the land, clean-up coordinator Carroll said the role of the Air Force is still prominent.
“The only thing [the land transfer] did was put the property in full control of the village of Rantoul, so the village owns all the property,” Carroll said. “Now, the Air Force’s position is not changing on Chanute. Any contaminants that are found in the future, we (United States Air Force) still have an obligation to clean up.”
Following the land transfer, the University of Illinois will also utilize a portion of Chanute through the Illinois Center for Transportation, a research center founded in 2005. The installation is used to test self-driving vehicles.
Dangers of PFAS, forever chemicals
Research on PFAS is evolving. The GAO said in October 2024 that PFAS might be the biggest water problem since lead. At Chanute, and other military bases, these forever chemicals resulting from the usage of AFFF have traveled into the soil and groundwater. Most of the clean-up efforts have occurred in the landfills at this site.
Water tests at Chanute have found the water is in compliance with contaminant levels that allow for safe drinking water. However, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a national nonprofit environmental advocacy group, said some standards haven’t been updated in up to 50 years.
PFAS exposure has been linked to multiple types of cancers. Some of these include kidney cancer, testicular cancer, prostate cancer and more.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request last November, the Illinois EPA released a few reports and pointed to its Document Explorer for records such as State Response Action documents.
Documents showed a primary inspector once visited the landfill site, but said no one was present. The inspector then looked over the landfills and was surrounded by locked gates leaving him no point of access.
He said he did not see any waste and instead “observed landfills from Google Maps.” He cited no violations and ended the inspection.
What About the old Hospital what’s going to happen there.
The USAF should be pressed to speed up the clean up.