BANGOR, Maine — The fire station at Bangor’s Air National Guard base is replacing its toxic firefighting foam with a new foam that does not contain PFAS.
This comes less than three weeks after 1,450 gallons of aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, was accidentally discharged at the Brunswick Executive Airport.
At the Bangor Air National Guard Base Fire Station, firefighters finished draining AFFF from their fire trucks on Friday.
The fire station, which serves Bangor International Airport, removed the foam that contains PFAS as part of a Department of Defense initiative to replace it with a non-toxic fluorine-free foam.
"The safety of every single firefighter here is first and foremost; protection of the environment is right up there. It truly is very important to us,” Kevin Marin, Bangor’s Maine Air National Guard installation fire chief, said.
The crew took precautions to ensure there was no cross-contamination between the old foam and new foam.
"Everybody here is involved, doing their part. It's a long process, but we're being very thorough," Marin said.
The foam will be stored on site until the station gets funding for safe disposal from the National Guard Bureau.
"We're all members of this community," Marin said. "We take what happens here very seriously to ensure that ourselves and our neighbors are not affected by anything that occurs here."
The AFFF is being replaced because of the high levels of PFAS it contains.
If leaked, these forever chemicals can contaminate groundwater and impact human health, including decreasing fertility and increasing the risk of cancer, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Changing that foam to a chemical formula that doesn't have compounds that forever persist is a multifold environmental benefit," Matthew McCarthy, Bangor’s Maine Air National Guard Base environmental manager, said.
Right now, the National Guard Bureau is investigating to determine what levels of contamination there could be in the groundwater at the base and airport after its prolonged use of AFFF.
"If levels are found to be above thresholds, then there'll be cleanup plans," McCarthy said.
By October 2025 all of the more than 1,500 Department of Defense facilities will be removing AFFF as required by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.