Over 1,600 gallons of PFAS firefighting foam spills into environment in Maine

Over 1,600 gallons of firefighting foam containing hazardous PFAS "forever chemicals" spilled in Brunswick, Maine early Monday morning after a fire suppression system malfunctioned at the former Brunswick Naval Air Base.

The foam was discharged in a hangar at what's now the Brunswick Executive Airport before entering the sewer and storm water systems. The firefighting foam, AFFF, contains PFAS chemicals that smother jet fuel fires.

"There was a large black outlet pipe, just discharging, pumping, basically foam out in the downstream side of the pond," Walker said. "So the entire stream bed was covered in this thick foam, getting up into the tree branches. It was so, so high. And then later this afternoon, as the wind started kicking in, the stuff went airborne."

Clean up efforts by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection are underway.

Professor Matthew Klingle, an environmental historian at nearby Bowdoin College and director for the Environmental Studies Program, said the chemicals are linked to serious health risks and are nearly indestructible in nature.

"To me, the bigger concern is not the immediate cleanup, but the fact that this is going to add to the already not insignificant amount of PFAs and other dangerous chemicals that are in the soils and the waters," Klingle said.

The former Naval Air Base now functions as the Brunswick Executive Airport. Maine restricted the use of A-Triple-F back in 2021. Public documents show the Navy had planned to remove the foam from the hangar by October of this year.

This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by Maine Public.