NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 28
The PFAS Problem
The old foam worked, but at a potential cost to
human health and the environment
Firefighters in Germany use foam on the wreckage of a passenger train.
Studies have shown that the PFAS chemicals present in foams that use
fluorine remain in the environment indefinitely after they are released,
potentially contaminating groundwater supplies and affecting the health
of humans and animals.
I
n the early 1960s, the US Navy began
working with the chemical company 3M
to develop a firefighting foam that could
quickly extinguish liquid fuel fires aboard
its ships, including aircraft carriers. Researchers
for the project eventually stumbled
across a promising new substance
and, in 1966, the Navy received a patent
for aqueous film forming foam, or AFFF.
Three years later, all Navy facilities were required
to have AFFF on hand in the event
of a fire. Varying forms of the original recipe
have been widely used on military bases,
airfields, oil and gas facilities, and by
municipal fire departments ever since.
Starting as far back as the 1970s, however,
scientists and health experts have
raised concerns about the potential hazards
of a group of chemical compounds
inside AFFF called per- and polyfluoroalkyl
28 | NFPA JOURNAL * FALL 2022
substances, or PFAS. The compounds are
hardly unique to firefighting foams-an
estimated 9,000 different types of PFAS
compounds have been used since the
1950s in a range of products, from nonstick
cookware to stain-resistant fabrics to
takeout pizza boxes. Although their molecular
makeup can vary slightly, all PFAS
chemicals consist of chains of carbon atoms
bonded to fluorine. These carbon/fluorine
bonds, it turns out, are stronger than
any chemical bond found in nature, to the
point that they do not break down in the
environment or even in the bodies of people
and animals. This trait has led the US
Environmental Protection Agency to describe
PFAS as " forever chemicals. "
Studies have shown that wherever AFFF
is extensively used and not recaptured-
be it in training, in a fire, or washed down
a drain in a fire truck bay-the PFAS compounds
it contains tend to remain. The
compounds have found their way into water
supplies and soils; PFOS and PFOA,
the two PFAS compounds that were most
commonly produced in the US and therefore
have been studied most extensively,
have been found in air samples, oceans,
and even the Arctic. Environmental Working
Group, a Washington, DC, nonprofit,
tracks and maps PFAS contamination
in the United States. As of October
2021, it listed more than 2,800 locations
in 50 states and two US territories that are
known to be contaminated with PFAS. Between
2013 and 2015, the EPA conducted
an extensive survey of US public water
systems and found that 198 of them-or
about 4 percent of all the nation's public
water systems-contained at least one or
GETTY IMAGES
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Fall 2022
Contents
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 1
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Contents
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 3
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 4
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 5
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 6
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NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - Cover3
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