PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • September 24, 2024
The Brunswick Executive Airport chemical spill sent thousands of gallons of toxic firefighting foam down the sewer drains bound for the Androscoggin River, which has only recently begun to rewrite its century-long history of industrial pollution. The pipes carried the spill under the 3,100-acre former naval air station to the sewer plant, where it was treated for some of its nastier contaminants but not the forever chemicals that make aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, so dangerous. Its next stop? The Androscoggin. Ed Friedman, chairman of Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, said, “It’s added an almost unfathomable longevity to the river’s pollution problems. We will be dealing with the fallout of this for generations to come.”