The Environmental Problem

How does fire fighting foam enter the water stream?

There are two main ways in which fire fighting foams enter the water stream.

1. Fire Incidents
These vary in scale from a burning car…to the scale of the Buncefield disaster.

In either case, unless the foam is contained, the foam used to fight the fire will run on to land, possibly into the ground but also into the surface water drains or the foul sewer.

If the foam content runs into the ground, it will probably find its way into the water stream – contaminating underground lakes, streams and rivers.

If it goes down the surface water drain it will be discharged into stream and rivers.

If it goes down the foul drain, the water treatment companies can unwittingly become the polluter.

Discharging to sewage treatment works can interfere with the functioning of the bacteria treating the sewage.

Equally important, treatment plants are not designed to deal with fluorosurfactants, which are extremely persistent and are thus discharged into and contaminate the water stream. Studies have proved that fluorinated material builds up in sewage sludge. In the UK more than 75% of all sewage sludge is used on agricultural land as a nutrient. If this fluorinated build-up is unknown to the water companies, the fluorinated material has an indirect route back to groundwater and will lead to its contamination.

For further details on the extent of the problem, please see Case Studies, where we detail the effects at Buncefield and other incidents.