Fencing of impacted floor has gone up at Kahului Airport on Maui as a brief measure to stop direct contact with the soil.
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance) is a part of aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) utilized in firefighting at airports. The use of AFFF is important for firefighting at airports because of the nature of plane gasoline fires.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) is taking steps to deal with PFAS impacted soil within the neighborhood of the Kahului Airport (OGG) Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting (ARFF) Training Pit. The steps HDOT is taking embrace fencing off the realm the place soil sampling exhibits PFAS and submission of an interim remedial motion plan to the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH).
While AFFF is now not launched in firefighting coaching right now, it was utilized in coaching previous to 2021. ARFF autos statewide have been retrofitted to restrict using AFFF solely to fires with or close by plane gasoline.
Based on historic use, the Hawaii Department of Transportation started soil sampling for PFAS at six areas. These areas are: 1) the OGG ARFF Training Pit, 2) the previous ARFF Training Pit on the Daniel Okay. Inouye International Airport, 3) the ARFF Training Pit on the Ellison Onizuka International Airport at Keahole, 4 & 5) the previous ARFF Training Pits on the Hilo International Airport, and 6) the previous ARFF Training Pit on the Lihue Airport. The OGG website sampling detected a number of PFAS compounds at or above Hawaii Department of Health environmental motion ranges for normal contact with the soil over a few years.
Groundwater beneath the fireplace coaching space has additionally been impacted by PFASs.
The groundwater just isn’t a supply of consuming water and doesn’t threaten different consuming water assets on the island. Additional investigation of the groundwater contamination is ongoing.
There are probably hundreds of PFAS which can be at present current within the United States. Each of those chemical substances has completely different properties and could also be used for various functions or might merely be current as unintended byproducts of sure manufacturing or different processes. The toxicity of the chemical substances varies. HDOT will proceed to work with HDOH on remedial actions at this website.
More info on PFASs is on the market at health.hawaii.gov/heer/environmental-health/highlighted-projects/per-and-polyflouroalkl-sbstances-pfass or epa.gov/pfas. Â