PFAS in and from Firefighting
Highlights from my recent reporting project
After months examining how per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) affect firefighters and the communities they serve, I’m sharing some findings—distilled from three articles, two videos and other resources (all posted here). This reporting project, supported by a Pulitzer Center StoryReach U.S. Fellowship, focuses on impacts in Maine, but similar challenges affect fire departments nationwide.
Health and ecological risks from PFAS, commonly called ‘forever chemicals,’ have prompted public concern and some policy responses, but few actions focus on workplace exposure. The fire service, heavily staffed by volunteers, faces particularly high exposure due to PFAS in some firefighting foams and in their protective jackets, pants and gloves.
Addressing PFAS risks is particularly hard for small-town fire departments, which often lack the resources to address PFAS contamination, acquire safer products, and follow protective protocols.
Aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) containing PFAS, commonly used for decades to fight Class B (flammable fuel) fires, has left a wake of residual contamination. Where AFFF was used, septic systems/leach fields and “underground injection control” systems (designed to manage stormwater) at fire stations can release PFAS into surrounding soils, allowing the chemicals to migrate into aquifers.
In 2019, states began to control use of AFFF, and Maine banned its manufacture, sale and distribution in 2021. However, stockpiles of foam concentrate remain at fire stations, airports, helipads, oil terminals, paper mills and former military bases—an estimated volume of more than 40,000 gallons statewide.
Even earlier, a PFAS Task Force appointed by Governor Janet Mills recommended that the state conduct an AFFF inventory and collect stocks of the foam concentrate, and that it test waters around fire stations and training areas. Those measures were never funded.
“Everyone knows the fire stations are an issue,” observed Nicholas Noons, an environmental engineer with the state of Rhode Island. “The challenge is that without a responsible party, the environmental assessment and filtration costs can fall to municipalities.”
According to a survey done as part of this project, 80 percent of the responding departments on wells had not tested their water for PFAS because “it has not been discussed/suggested.” Subsequently, 20 geographically dispersed departments—few of which had used much AFFF historically—sampled water for PFAS as part of this project. Most samples tested below the state and federal standard for the limited PFAS that are regulated, but two-thirds had low levels of a PFAS compound not even measured in certified state tests.
Maine’s Legislature has adopted many measures to address PFAS risks, and it has established a $70 million fund to help farmers and residents affected by past spreading of PFAS-laden sludge. “It’s clear from our experience in Maine with farmers that having that safety net is critically important,” observed Tricia Rouleau, farm network director for the nonprofit Maine Farmland Trust. Yet five years after the PFAS Task Force underscored the need to ensure that fire departments and municipalities “are not financially burdened for environmental clean-up incidental to Class B AFFF….,” they have received no support.
Other states have made more headway than Maine inventorying AFFF stocks and taking back supplies, but there are still environmental and public health concerns associated with all current PFAS disposal options. Municipalities in Maine seeking to get rid of AFFF stocks have inadequate options and no informational clearinghouse to help guide them. If municipalities hire a waste contractor, the AFFF typically goes to either a hazardous waste landfill or incinerator, both of which can further spread PFAS through emissions and landfill leachate. Departments are left with no good options: “I don’t really know where it’s going,” observed Philip Selberg, South Portland’s fire chief. “So am I just sending it to some poor county in the middle of nowhere and making it their problem?”
Maine’s de facto policy of storing AFFF “safely in place” drew renewed scrutiny last summer when 1,450 gallons of AFFF spilled from a hangar fire-suppression system at the formal Naval Air Station in Brunswick. Three bill titles related to AFFF safety have been submitted for legislative consideration in the current session.
Like many other states, Maine has filed suit against chemical and foam manufacturers for damages done by AFFF, but the outcome remains uncertain. In settlements, said John Gardella, a trial attorney and shareholder at CMBG3 Law in Boston. states often “take a discount on what they truly need.”
News of Note
One insidious aspect of microplastics is their capacity to attract chemicals (like PFAS) and pathogens to their surface. A Norwegian study found that microplastics in wastewater can shield some pathogens from being destroyed in conventional wastewater treatment processes, and Austrian researchers discovered that nanoplastics can alter drug absorption, potentially making antibiotics—for example—less biologically available.
Scientists are learning that microplastics cycling in the atmosphere can potentially affect both weather and climate by promoting the formation of clouds. Plastics have also begun changing the microbial communities in soil.
The ubiquity of these microscopic plastic particles and fibers is particularly concerning because so little is known about their chemical constituents. More than half of respondents in a 2024 survey of 50 retailers by the nonprofit Toxic Free Future had not sought information on chemical ingredients from suppliers of their products or packaging.
To pressure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to monitor for microplastics as part of the Safe Drinking Water Act, 170 environmental organizations filed a legal petition in late November.
Good Resources
In his “Chasing Health” podcast, CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta discusses micro- and nanoplastics with Dr. Leonardo Trasande, director of environmental pediatrics at NYU School of Medicine.
Substack writer Jason Anthony published an essay about the toxic effects of car tires, which by one estimate account for as much as a quarter of the microplastics accumulating in the environment.
Good Riddance
If hearing the “Chasing Health” podcast motivates you to reduce your plastics exposure, Dr. Trasande offers these tips: avoid canned foods; don’t heat plastic (which includes not placing it in the dishwasher); don’t use plastic cutting boards; avoid plastics labeled with the numbers 3, 6 and 7; use uncoated cookware (to avoid both plastics and PFAS); and vacuum regularly with a HEPA filter. As Trasande notes in a commentary in The Lancet, dietary interventions can markedly reduce chemical exposure from plastics.
Thanks for reading!
Isn't the "responsible party" referred to by the Rhode Island engineer actually 3M? All of us municipal taxpayers shouldn't pay to clean up this mess, the manufacturer who profited heavily should.