By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — The Board of Finance on Wednesday approved a $34,750 expenditure sought by the Fire Department to remove aqueous film-forming foam from fire engines.

AFFF was used by firefighters for decades to smother certain types of blazes, including those with burning fuel.

“Back in 2021 the state banned AFFF foam because it contains PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals,”

Fire Chief Nicholas Marsan said of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. “At the time they had given us a year to switch over to something that was approved by Environmental Protection with the state.”

“The state was offering a take-back program, so we emptied all of our onboard supply of foam, put it into barrels and waited for the state to pick it up,” Marsan said.

“Here we are in 2024 and it’s still waiting there to get picked up,” he said. “The state is now offering, they have $3 million in funds, for fire departments for the removal of the foam as well as a triple-wash rinse of the insides of the engines where we had it.”

He said the department had AFFF on four of its engines. He said two of them are going out of service, but it wouldn’t be right to sell them to another municipality with the foam still in there.

He told the board the appropriation would be 100 percent reimbursable through the state program.

There were some questions from the board about the range of the three bids, if the foam was in a secure place, why a 25 percent contingency.

“Is there a ticking time bomb on the state reimbursement on this?” Rich Hightower asked.

Marsan said he had already set a tentative date with the lowest bidder to do the work in the beginning of July.

“Expediency matters here,” he said. “We want to get it off site and away from our firefighters.”

The vote was unanimous. The funding request will go next to the Representative Town Meeting.

Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 36 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.