Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in water has become a growing concern nationwide. Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, communities in several states fear the chemicals could be in their air.
The report points out that, according to contracts cited in a federal lawsuit, the U.S. Defense Department entered into two contracts in 2018 and one in 2019 to ship more than 2 million gallons of unused PFAS-containing firefighting foam to hazardous waste incinerators in a number of states, including Ohio, New York and Arkansas.
The Wall Street Journal has more:
From her backyard, Sandy Estell can see an incinerator—a white complex of buildings along the Ohio River—owned by a company with a Defense Department contract to burn more than 800,000 gallons of firefighting foam and related waste.
The aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, contains hard-to-destroy chemicals once used in Teflon cookware and other products. The compounds—known as forever chemicals because they take so long to break down—were also widely used for decades on military sites and elsewhere to smother fires.