Read the full article by Jeff Beach (Daily Montanan)
“In the search for a more eco-friendly firefighting foam, soybeans may be the answer to moving away from ‘forever chemicals.’
Forever chemicals has become the common term for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS.
The Environmental Protection Agency calls them widely used, long-lasting chemicals that break down very slowly over time. They also have been a common ingredient in foam used to fight fires and have been linked to high rates of cancer among firefighters.
‘While PFAS contamination is bad and something that we’re sorting through, it’s very effective as a firefighting foam. And folks whose lives have been saved by it likely appreciate that,’ Adam Driscoll of Minneapolis-based Barr Engineering told a North Dakota conference of the Air and Waste Management Association in Bismarck last week. ‘That’s the difficult decision that folks are wrestling with at the moment.'”…