Chautauqua County is looking to replace firefighting foam owned by fire departments throughout the county that has perfluorononanoic acid in it, free of charge.

During the legislature’s Public Safety Committee meeting, a request was made by the county’s Emergency Services Department to spend $57,000 on new foam which would be provided to county fire departments. The money would come from the American Rescue Plan Act fund, which originated from the federal government in response to COVID-19.

“There’s been a lot of information in the last year or two about firefighting foam being bad for the environment,” said Emergency Services Director Noel Guttman. “The PFAS in it has caused all sorts of problems for water systems and just public health in general.”

The perfluorononanoic acid was actually detected in Mayville’s water system in December 2020, shutting the village’s water system down for weeks. Eventually the cause was determined to come from firefighting training exercises at the Chautauqua Municipal Building, Mayville’s former high school, when they used firefighting foam.

Since then, Mayville has drilled a new well and put in a treatment plant to remove PFAS from it. The village is also looking to drill new wells in the future.

Guttman said many fire departments still have this foam that was used in those exercises. It’s used to fight oil or gas hydrocarbon fires. “It’s been used for decades. Pretty much every fire department has this on hand. Now the state has come out and said this is bad. You can’t buy it anymore,” he said.

According to Guttman, the state has not banned the foam outright, but it doesn’t allow it to be used for training exercises. “They’ve said if you have it, you can use it, but you better have a really good life safety issue,” he said.

In response, Guttman said a new universal “green” foam has been developed, which is environmentally friendly and contains no PFAS. “It’s designed to mimic the same qualities as Class B foam. It works just a little different, but does the same job,” he said.

Guttman said they want to buy this new green foam and distribute it to the 42 fire departments in the county, as well as the county’s Haz-Mat team.

He noted that this would be a one-time purchase and it would be up to local fire departments to replace it once they use it. The county will also not pay for storage nor will they collect the Class B foam with the PFAS in it.

Guttman said there are companies that creating proposals to collect the bad foam and dispose of it, however if that happens, it will be up to each fire department to make arrangements and pay the costs.

The Public Safety Committee gave its approval of the green foam purchase. The full legislature will vote on final approval at its next meeting on Wednesday.