'Forever Chemicals' Here to Stay, Despite Alternatives

a victim of its own success. The so called forever chemicals, named as such because they're so resistant to breaking down the environment, are really really good at what they do, and they do a lot of things, but one of the things they do best is putting out fires. The military has been using sprayable phone lace with p fast to do exactly this since the Vietnam War era, and so have airports and other places that work with highly

flammable materials. The problem, of course, is that, as we now know, P fast chemicals are really bad for your health, and estated earlier, they're really hard to get rid of. But now we may finally have other firefighting tools that work just as well as P FAST but aren't P fast. Liberal reporters Pat Rizzutto and Andrew Wallander just wrote a story about whether this means the military and other entities can start phasing app fast foam. As it turns out,

doing that is going to be really, really hard. Here's my conversation with them. One of the reasons why I wanted to bring you guys on is you just did a story about, you know, replacements for P fast in firefighting foam. For the longest time, I was under the impression that it was impossible to replace because it's so effective. Um, but it sounds like that maybe changing. What's what's going on with that, Is it possible now to have a

P fast replacement that just as good as P fast. Well, d D and the researchers it's funded have been evaluating dozens of products. Some of those products are actually used abroad at airports, but the challenge has been the at they have more limited uses where you know, an airport is mostly dealing with jet fuel. The military needs firefighting tools that can put out something with propane, something with gasoline, something with who knows how many chemicals, something that works

with freshwater, something that works with saltwater. I mean, the conditions under which the military fights are so much broader than an airport that it really has You know, it's taken a lot of hard work to try and find one or perhaps more alternatives. As a layperson, I would think something that can put out jet fuel could probably put out anything. But it's sounds like that's not the

case at all. You need some specialized stuff, apparently from people much smarter than I. I'm told they don't and that some of the problems with some of the substitutes that have worked abroad is that they don't work for the full range of stuff that can burn. And that's really really dangerous because it flows like a river as it burns. Yeah, that's frightening. Um, So give me a sense of how quickly the regulations around this are changing.

You guys did a story about you know, d O D is doing its own thing, The FAA is doing it's things, States are doing their thing. Um, what what's happening here? Who are is this a coordinated effort or are they all on separate, parallel tracks. Well, I'm going to start just by saying that it's what's called equist film forming foam, A for people who don't want obnoxious names um. And that's the type of foam that until

now and still today uses various forms of p FAST. Right, So, we've got at least two dozen states so far that have put out legislation of some kind past legislation restricting the use of this type of foam in some way. It's been one of the most active areas of p FAST enforcement that states have been involved in, and but it varies widely for how states have been looking at this. So a lot of a lot of those states they will just restrict the use of that foam in training

and testing exercises. Well, some states have gone so far as to ban full use of the foam and or banned manufacturer manufactured distribution. There's a lot of exceptions for emergencies as well. So even even though these states are are putting the brakes on selling this foam and buying it, the phone that's still out there, a lot of a lot of fire companies, organizations, airports, that sort of thing will still be able to use it for the foreseeable future.

Well that's really interesting because I would imagine in a situation where the foam is banned outright Uh, then you can get to the to the you know, very laborious process of getting rid of it, which will get to you in a second. But in a situation where it's allowed only in emergencies, you can actually you know, keep around, right, Um,

can you tell me a little bit about that. How do you if you if you keep it around, you have to store it, you have to make sure it doesn't you know, get out into the environment, right right, Yeah, absolutely, And so a lot of fire departments are making a lot more effort to train their their firefighters and how to actually use this foam and when to use it, and trying to be very uh use it very sparingly.

And I know that the government's on that as well, telling you know, airports not to use this foam unless it's absolutely necessary for an emergency, and trying to really restrict the use of it because a lot of a lot of the contamination and pollution that we've seen from from fast foam has been from these training exercises where they've just been using it, uh way too often. From what we know now what the science is telling Andrew just nailed it. It's actually not the use to control

the hazardous fires that were really worried about. That's been the problem with the A triple left. It was the you know, daily training, you know, for years, for decades that just was pouring it into the environment. UM. Really since the end of the Vietnam War. Now you know, in some cases, as you mentioned, it's it's being phased out completely. In some cases it's being phased out mostly UM.

But one of the things that you wrote about in your story that I is now obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me before I read it, was that it's really hard to get rid of. You can't just throw it away, you can't just take it to a landfill. How do you get rid of aqueous film forming foam atriple leaf um, you know, safely without causing its own

environmental hazards. So it seems and impact correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems there's two main ways that fire departments are going about disposing of the of the foam and the first sister incineration, burning the foam at very high temperatures where it can break apart some of these these molecules, and then the other is to basically put it in the ground to bury it. And UM. You mean like deep well well on the ground, right, UM, so truck it off to some facility that that has

the ability to to do that. So either burning it or burying it is the two main ways. Just to elaborate on how challenging this waste problem is. UM. What makes p fast really wonderful for products is that they the chemicals last so long. Now, if you've got UM wires and cables that are coated with the chemicals in your office sailing, which we probably do to reduce the chance of fires, that's really great because you want those wires and cables to be resistant to fires for many,

many years. But the downside is when you're trying to get it rid of it, it's really stubborn. It likes to hide in the nooks and the crannies of the pipes and the other equipment that you know shoot out

the foam. So what that means is that as fire departments, oil rigs, oil refineries, chemical manufacturers, airports and anybody else who's using it D O D, they're going to have to clean out aircraft hangars that use that A triple left, they're going to have to clean out lots of fire trucks and other equipments that's had it, and maybe even trucks um that will have to be gotten rid of

whole entire trucks. Some it's entirely possible, according to some of those folks that I spoke to, that it could be more cost effective to just buy a new truck, even if that's costing in the six digits then to clean it all out, or if it's a marginal difference, maybe you want a new truck that has some new cool features. And one of the challenges that folks are facing is win in January, d D announces the new

requirements for these new phones. Then it's going to take a couple of months to certify and say these are the phones that actually work for the military. What if there aren't a lot of those, and the military, with all its vast purchasing power, buys up all the new phones, right Well, that's actually what I wanted to get into, is that it's one thing for the military to make a new rule or new regulation that applies to itself.

It's another thing for civilian aviation for the FAA to make new rules, and then it's an entirely other thing for the states for fifty different states to have different rules. Are we concerned that there will be not totally compliance here, that some of these airports or other people who use or other firefighting entities might just say, Hey, you know, we'd like to replace this atribal left, but we just can't. Sorry,

we'll just pay a fine. Airports are among the folks who are concerned, Well, the military could buy up all the available supply, so then what are we going to do. They're also concerned about, you know, getting enough just to to the general global supply chain problems. And they're also concerned about not having enough experts who know how to clean out the equipment, not having enough equipment to clean out the equipment. There's a real desire for are coordinated

national strategy here. Andrew. I want to hear from you because you know, as we all know, you know, it's one thing to make a rule, it's another thing to ensure compliance with that rule. Did the states have a um plan for making sure that their new regulations are complied with or is it just they're saying phase out

p fasts and not really following up. Yes, it's it's been interesting to see a lot of states have actually pushed some of the UH notification UH part of the compliance at least letting people know that this is these laws are out there to some of the manufacturers and saying, if you've sold these types of p fasts foams to people, it's your responsibility for the law to actually notify them that the laws changing, they're not going to be able to use it or not gonna be able to buy

it from you anymore, which is interesting actually, right right and then and then there's also a lot of a lot of card be outs in these laws. So even though we're seeing a lot of change going on now, some of these carve outs in the laws, we're going to be seeing p fast foam sticking around till at least the lateies, early twenty thirties, based on how long

some of these windows are for the states UM. And then one of the things that's interesting to note in the state level two is UM Connecticut, they actually came out with a particular foam for people to buy, saying that this is we've done our research, UH, this foam meets our specifications. Are public agencies are going to buy this fast free phone uh and putting it out there that others So they didn't just say, you know, phase out p fast film. They said, phase out p fast foam.

That by doing this, by buying this other they said, this one's approved for for state agencies to use, and UH, we've done the research and there's now alternatives that meet our needs. Finally, I wanted to get back to something that Pat alluded to earlier, that you know, P fast has a lot of uses. You know, for obvious, firefighting phone is what we're talking about now, but also you know it's it's used throughout the economy and in in a

lot of different ways. But it sounds like the one of the main ways that p fast gets into the environment is through the spraying of this phone, because when you're spraying the foam, obviously it's going everywhere. It's meant to get down to the environment. If we actually do succeed in phasing out p fast in firefighting foam, will that be kind of will we get almost all the way towards solving the P fast problem? Will that be victory over P fast day UM? I would not characterize

it that way at all. If UM, if the government, federal and state, UH and private sector are successful in finding alternatives to a triple F that will be a major step forward. They've already taken steps by not you using a triple left for training, and by the military doesn't use it for training. F A A discourages its use except in emergencies. UM fire departments aren't using it for training. I'm told I'm they used water UM. So they've already been some major steps to reduce its use

for the firefighting foam. UM. Having alternatives will help mean that no more a trip left which has p FAST is being put into the environment, So it'll be a help, But it doesn't do anything about the p FST that's already out there. Since you know, we're talking especially with the older forms of a triple left, we're talking about real well known forever chemicals UM. And it doesn't stop

the other sources of p FS in the environment. UM. Landfills are a major source because of all the products that are coated with the chemicals that then go into land fills and then over time the leach it happens. So, you know, does this address a major source? Yes? Does it solve everything? No? And UM. A major concern that I heard was do we know enough about the alternatives?

Will they be safe or will there be shortcuts in the rush to get alternatives that there won't be enough testing and we'll have another problem, you know, a couple of decades from now. Yeah, because as you know very well, I mean, there's a long history of you know, industry creating an alternative to a harmful substance and then that alternative also turns out to be harmful itself, otherwise known as whack a mole. Exactly what do you think? I mean?

Do you think it sounds like, based on what Pat is saying, that taking p fast out of firefighting foam would help make the problem not get worse or at least not get worse as quickly, but it wouldn't solve the problem at all. Yeah. No, I I agree with that. I think that it's it's a huge step and and cuts off a major source of some of the p fast pollution. But like Pat said, a lot of the

damage is already done. There's a lot of uh places in the environment that already have a lot of p fast contamination in the groundwater from decades and decades of using these phones, and um, you know, there's there's still gonna be p fast applications in other consumer products and so there's still going to be a need to manufacture uh P fast, and so there's always you know, potential from contamination from some of those sites that are manufacturing the P fast and uh and and landfills and and

and other sources. All right, well that was Andrew Wallander and pat Rizzuto talking about P fast. Thank you guys so much, And that's it for today's episode of Parts for Billion. If you want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We use the handle at environment just that environment nothing else. I'm at David B. Schultz if you want to chat with me about anything. Today's episode of Partner Really is produced by myself, David Joels special

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