[CPEO-MEF] PFAS: "Updated DOD standards: Critical first step toward firefighting foam made without ‘forever chemicals’"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

News Release
Environmental Working Gorup
January 12, 2023

Updated DOD standards: Critical first step toward firefighting foam made without ‘forever chemicals’

WASHINGTON – Today the Department of Defense quietly released new requirements for the firefighting foam it uses to put out jet fuel fires. It marks a crucial step toward ending the use of foams containing the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, which have long contaminated drinking water.

For more than 50 years, the DOD has required the use of a firefighting foam made with PFAS, known as aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF. Because of this widespread use, more than 700 military sites in 50 states are known or suspected to be contaminated with PFAS. 

PFAS exposure is associated with some kinds of cancer, reproductive and developmental harms, and immune harms. 

The new firefighting foam standards, dated January 6, 2023, are known as a military specification. In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, Congress required the DOD to update the standard by January 31, 2023. That same law also required the department to stop buying PFAS-based foams by October 1, 2023, and stop using them entirely by October 1, 2024. 

…

For the entire release, see
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2023/01/updated-dod-standards-critical-first-step-toward-firefighting

The Defense Department document may be found at 
https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jan/12/2003144157/-1/-1/1/MILITARY-SPECIFICATION-FOR-FIRE-EXTINGUISHING-AGENT-FLUORINE-FREE-FOAM-F3-LIQUID-CONCENTRATE-FOR-LAND-BASED-FRESH-WATER-APPLICATIONS.PDF

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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