PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 29, 2024
Like many states, Maine is struggling to determine how to dispose of its stockpile of toxic aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, stored in its fire stations, airports, military bases, oil terminals and paper mills. The chemicals used to make the foam are essentially liquid forever chemicals. The most common disposal methods — incineration, landfilling and deep underground storage — all have drawbacks. Until scientists find safer solutions, states like Maine must wrestle with the ethics of sending dangerous waste like AFFF away to be burned, buried or banked, often in poor communities of color. Newly released records show more than 22,000 gallons of PFAS-laden foam and rinse water recovered after the recent Brunswick spill were trucked to waste incinerators in low-income communities far from Maine's borders.