Testing Confirms PFAS at Eau Claire Airport

Jul. 22—EAU CLAIRE — PFAS contamination has been confirmed through groundwater and soil testing at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, which is near Eau Claire's municipal wellfield.

The local airport released findings Friday from a third-party site investigation that state regulators requested due to PFAS chemicals being found last year in some of the city's wells.

The Eau Claire airport reported that the consultant hired to do the site investigation, AECOM, is submitting its initial results to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

"Initial test results detected PFAS on airport property, but further investigation is needed to gather additional information on the extent of PFAS on the airport," Charity Zich, airport director, said in the news release.

In addition to determining the breadth of the contamination, the additional testing is needed to determine any other factors that may have contributed to the contamination beyond the use of firefighting foam at the airport.

PFAS are a group of chemicals found in a variety of products, including firefighting foam used to quickly extinguish aircraft fires.

The local airport stopped using the foam in training drills in 2020. However, foam was used as a precaution in April 2021 when a plane went off the runway, but did not catch fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been working for several years to find a substitute for PFAS-containing foam with a goal of approving those alternatives next year, the airport's news release noted.

In addition to firefighting foam, PFAS have been used in consumer goods with stain or water-repellent properties, including nonstick cookware, upholstery, clothing, cleaning products and food wrappers. Current scientific research suggests adverse health outcomes for exposure to high levels of PFAS, but research is still ongoing, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's website.

Since the discovery of PFAS in some of Eau Claire's drinking water wells in mid-2021, the city has been regularly testing for the chemicals, not using the tainted wells and planning for ways to address the problem.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against 18 companies that used PFAS, seeking reimbursement for state investigations and cleanup efforts, the Associate Press reported.

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