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Groundwater Impacted By Fire-Fighting Foams

Date:
July 15, 1999
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
Fires resulting from airplane crashes are fought using aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) that are formulated to act quickly by spreading a film of water over the burning fuel that subsequently extinguishes the fire. The first evidence that these foams later contaminate groundwater is scheduled to appear in the August 15 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology.
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Surfactant foam components detected for the first time

Fires resulting from airplane crashes are fought using aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) that are formulated to act quickly by spreading a film of water over the burning fuel that subsequently extinguishes the fire. The first evidence that these foams later contaminate groundwater is scheduled to appear in the August 15 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, published by the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. (The report initially was published on the journal's Web site on July 3, 1999.)

Fifty-three percent of drinking water in this country comes from groundwater, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Until now, the fate of AFFF released to the environment at fire-training facilities and emergency response sites was unknown, says Jennifer A. Field, Ph.D., of Oregon State University. Commercial AFFF mixtures are proprietary in nature, Field says, but they are known to contain fluorocarbon- and hydrocarbon-based surfactants. Field developed an analytical method for measuring the amount of perfluorocarboxylated surfactants in ground water, and then monitored groundwater at military bases in Florida and Nevada that had fire-training facilities which were no longer in use. Concentrations were detected at these sites ranging from 0.1 to 7.1 parts per million. Samples with some of the higher concentrations actually foamed.

Unfortunately, Field notes, the stability of the fluorocarbon surfactants that makes them good choices for high-temperature applications such as fire-fighting has the negative effect of making them resistant to degradation in the environment. The components measured in Field's study are thought to be only minor components of the original fire-fighting foams, so that the actual amount of fluorinated constituents of AFFF in contaminated groundwater is likely much higher, according to Field.

Field's work is the first to detect the AFFF components in groundwater, but virtually nothing is known about their behavior in the environment, she says. The surfactants associated with fire training activities may also occur with other pollutants, such as fuel components and solvents, so it is important to determine if the AFFF surfactants affect the transport and biodegradation of other contaminants, according to Field. The risk that these mixtures pose to human health and the environment can only be determined after more measurements are made of their occurrence and distribution, Field states.

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A nonprofit organization with a membership of nearly 159,000 chemists and chemical engineers, the American Chemical Society publishes scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences, and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. www.acs.org

The online version of the research paper cited above is available on the American Chemical Society's ASAP (As Soon As Publishable) web site. Journalists desiring full access to papers at the ASAP site must submit their requests in writing to newsroom@acs.org in the ACS Dept. of News & Information.


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Cite This Page:

American Chemical Society. "Groundwater Impacted By Fire-Fighting Foams." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 July 1999. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990715062841.htm>.
American Chemical Society. (1999, July 15). Groundwater Impacted By Fire-Fighting Foams. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990715062841.htm
American Chemical Society. "Groundwater Impacted By Fire-Fighting Foams." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/07/990715062841.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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