Read the full article by Isabella Breda and Manuel Villa (The Seattle Times)
“SEATTLE-TACOMA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT — Taxiing jet engines groaned on the tarmac, their fumes filling the Port of Seattle’s firetruck bays on an early summer day here. Snaking hoses connected tanks and filters in a complex cleanup operation.
Over six days, the system flushed a toxic substance from a firetruck as the department became one of the first in the nation to begin to remove firefighting foam concentrates laced with ‘forever chemicals.’
For decades, per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, or PFAS, have been used in foams to put out the highest-intensity petroleum-fueled fires — especially important in saving lives amid catastrophe at airports, military bases and fossil fuel refineries.
But the chemicals have left a deadly legacy.”…