Read the full article by Asaf Shalev (Monterey County Weekly)
“The coating on your frying pan that allows omelettes to slide off belongs to the same family of chemicals, known as PFAS, that are used to put out aircraft fires.
In 2007, an emergency crew at the Monterey Regional Airport sprayed foam containing PFAS on a Cirrus aircraft that had caught on fire while being towed. The foam burst out at a rate of 300 gallons per minute and quickly smothered the flames.
Earlier this year, a team of environmental investigators drilled holes at the site of the crash and sampled the groundwater at a depth of a few dozen feet. The water, they discovered following laboratory tests, was contaminated with PFOA, one of dozens of known PFAS compounds. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that any concentration of PFOA above 70 parts per trillion could be harmful if consumed. The concentration in the sample was 12,700 parts per trillion.
The airport commissioned the investigation in response to a 2019 order by the State Water Resources Control Board, which is studying the threat of PFAS contamination to drinking water throughout California…”