State seeks testing of 2011 firefighting foam spill at airport

The June malfunction at Bradley International Airport that sent thousands of gallons of potentially toxic firefighting foam into the Farmington River wasn’t the first time such an accident happened in Connecticut.

State records show two similar spills at Waterbury Oxford Airport in 2011 sent firefighting foam containing hazardous chemical compounds called PFAS into the local sewer system and apparently into the nearby Naugatuck River.

In once case, the foam also overflowed from a containment pond and into a wooded wetlands area near the airport. No testing of nearby drinking water wells was performed at the time of the 2011 spills, according to reports submitted by state environmental officials at the time.

But state officials said this week that they are pushing to have such tests done now to determine if there has been PFAS contamination of any wells.

A Connecticut official said this week such tests weren’t done in 2011 because the risks of PFAS pollution weren’t clearly understood at the time.

“We’ve learned a lot in the intervening years,” Lee Sawyer, a spokesman for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said Tuesday. “We’re asking for testing to take place now.”

PFAS compounds have been nicknamed “forever chemicals” because of the length of time they can remain in the environment and how they can accumulate in the human body. PFAS has been linked to various types of cancer, kidney and liver disease, reproductive problems, obesity, immune system issues and other health troubles.

These compounds have been used in a broad array of consumer products and industrial processes in addition to firefighting foam. Pizza boxes, rain gear, nonstick cookware and stainresistant carpets have all been made using PFAS.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s needed,” Kevin Zack, an environmental activist who heads the Naugatuck River Revival Group, said of the state’s effort to test drinking water wells near the 2011 Waterbury Oxford Airport spills.

State health officials have tested dozens of major drinking water systems around the state in recent years and found no evidence of significant PFAS pollution.

But a private well in Greenwich near New York’s Westchester Airport was discovered to have hazardous levels of the chemicals, apparently the result of PFAS firefighting foam leaks from the airport. Another private well in Willimantic located near a firefighting training facility where the chemical foam was often used also tested positive for PFAS contamination.

State officials have asked researchers at the University of Rhode Island to conduct PFAS tests on major bodies of water around Connecticut. It wasn’t clear Tuesday if that would eventually include the Naugatuck River. Additional tests are in the works for the Air National Guard base at Bradley and at the U.S. Navy submarine base in Groton.

PFAS pollution from firefighting foam has become a major issue across the U.S. and Congress is now considering legislation to ban its use in the future when a substitute has been approved.

Gov. Ned Lamont earlier this month created as state task force to study the PFAS pollution problem in Connecticut and recommend new regulations and legislation to restrict the use of products like PFAS firefighting foam.

The Federal Aviation Administration has mandated the use of PFAS foam at airports and aviation facilities because of its effectiveness in suppressing fuel and chemical fires.

In both the Waterbury Oxford Airport and Bradley Airport PFAS spills, malfunctions in hangar fire suppression system resulted in the release of masses of the chemicalwater foam mixture.

The Connecticut Airport Authority, which took over control of those two airports and four others around the state in 2013, has ordered all hangar operators to seek to prevent such spills in the future.

Hangar operations at Waterbury Oxford Airport in 2011 were the responsibility of Keystone Aircraft LLC. Those properties were transferred to Atlantic Aviation Oxford LLC in 2017.

In a statement Tuesday, Atlantic Aviation officials said their understanding is that those 2011 PFAS releases “were cleaned up by the former owner” under the direction of state environmental officials.

“Since taking over the facilities, we have worked under the guidance and supervision of DEEP to routinely monitor environmental conditions in the immediate area,” according to Atlantic Aviation officials.

State officials say Keystone remains responsible for any environmental cleanup at the site. It was the transfer of the properties that gave the state the opportunity to request testing for PFAS in the area around the airport, Sawyer said.

On Oct. 31, 2011, a malfunction at a Waterbury Oxford Airport hangar owned at the time by Keystone triggered the release of large amounts of PFAS foam. Sikorsky Aircraft was then renting the hangar to conduct final inspections of five helicopters, according to the state report.

According to the state’s initial report, more than 4,000 gallons of PFAS foamwater mixture may have been released into the hangar. “There was also some overflow into the municipal wastewater system that goes to Naugatuck Treatment Facility,” the state inspector reported.

Experts say regular sewage treatment plants aren’t equipped to filter out PFAS chemicals, and it appears that any of the firefighting foam that reached the nearby treatment plant would have then flowed into the Naugatuck River.

Asecond malfunction occurred at another hangar at the same airport on Dec. 7, 2011, according to state records. The foam released resulted in “huge billows of foam” that filled a portion of the large hangar operated by airport, flooded into a nearby retention pond and the sewer system, according to a state report.