The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority is asking Gov. Janet Mills’ office for funding to help clean up toxic chemicals in its hangars in the wake of a disastrous firefighting foam spill in August.

In a budget request letter dated Oct. 28, the authority said that it wants to pursue an emergency project that will cost about $21.9 million to remove and replace its fire suppression systems and substances that contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at Brunswick Executive Airport. The authority said the funding would be used to design, demolish, permit, bid and construct new fire suppression systems, as well as dispose of hazardous PFAS chemicals in Hangars 4, 5 and 6.

The request comes over two months after an Aug. 19 spill in which the fire suppression system in Hangar 4 malfunctioned, releasing 1,450 gallons of firefighting foam concentrate mixed with 50,000 gallons of water. The concentrate was an aqueous film-forming (AFFF) solution, which contain PFAS, a manmade “forever chemical” family that is known to be harmful to health.

The spill — Maine’s worst in 30 years — has prompted an ongoing remediation effort involving the Department of Environmental Protection. Hangar 4 is now unable to operate as intended, the authority said, making it unable to honor a “revenue generating lease” with the tenant.

“Obviously, the goal is to try to convert the AFFF system to a non-AFFF system where there would be no PFAS; the idea is to eliminate PFAS from the hangars. That’s the long-term goal,” said Steve Levesque, a former executive director of MRRA who has been contracted to fill in while the MRRA board looks to replace Kristine Logan, the director who resigned early this month.

The letter, signed by MRRA Board Chairperson H.A. “Nick” Nichols, stated that the most efficient way to mitigate the issues of AFFF in its hangars and prevent “further events” was to replace the current systems with alternative technology. Levesque said that the project, from start to finish, would likely take around 18 months. There is no start date in place, but he noted that the hope is to get started as soon as the entity gets funding.

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“I’d love to get started tomorrow. I mean, realistically, if everything goes well, it would be next summer probably,” he said.

He said MRRA does not yet know exactly how hangar tenants will be impacted but that MRRA would try to minimize disruption.

TIF troubles and the financial burden of PFAS cleanup

The budget request comes in the wake of a tense debate over MRRA’s annual Tax Increment Financing request for $1.5 million from the Town of Brunswick. The request is part of an annual process to secure funding sourced from property taxes generated by either MRRA tenants on the airport or the Landing, or through the properties that MRRA sells.

In this year’s annual request, MRRA sought over $1 million to support critical infrastructure and MRRA’s Capital Improvement Budget at the Landing. The request was tabled by a unanimous council vote last Monday and workshopped in a public forum a few days later.

MRRA came under fire at both the council meeting and public forum, where residents and some local leaders questioned why the request did not allocate funding to PFAS removal.

The request, which was formally submitted to the Town over the summer, was reviewed by a special committee designated for MRRA TIF funding after the spill. The committee — comprised of Councilors Jennifer Hicks, Abby King and Dave Watson — voted unanimously on Sept. 11 to recommend approval of the TIF request.

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On Sept. 12, the Portland Press Herald reported that Hangar 4 was flagged as “deficient” in an inspection 14 months before it malfunctioned in August — a revelation that spurred outrage among local officials and calls for former Executive Director Kristine Logan’s resignation. Logan resigned a month later, citing that she wanted to avoid “distracting” from foam cleanup efforts and “to ensure this good work goes on, unimpeded by outside politics and the political agendas of others.”

About a week later, MRRA also revealed that Hangars 5 and 6 were also found deficient in their inspection reports over a year ago. The Brunswick Fire Department issued a notice of violation shortly after, prompting the authority to submit a Corrective Plan of Action to fix deficiencies and perform annual testing of the fire suppression systems.

“Looking back, I think there’s a lot of information we didn’t have,” King said at the TIF workshop last week, noting that the councilors who approved the request did not know about the discrepancies in the reports. She also noted that going back to the drawing board was fair and timely. “As a member of the committee, I would support a review of MRRA’s proposal to the town.”

TIFs aside, MRRA, which is financially on the hook for the spill, is juggling hefty bills from contractors secured to clean up the spill. By mid-October, the authority said it had already accumulated about $590,000 of spill-related expenses.

After the spill occurred at the hangar, two claims were filed with MRRA’s insurance agencies — one with a state-provided insurance policy and another with a commercial policy the Navy required for Hangar 4. The latter was denied outright due to a PFOS-exception clause in the policy, the MRRA board revealed earlier this month. The first policy also only covers what’s inside the building, such as cleaning up the foam or walls inside the hangar, MRRA said.

Levesque said that MRRA is exploring “any and all” funding options when questioned if MRRA would try to press for funding from the Navy, which owns Hangar 4. He said that insurance companies often deny claims at first and that it was working with the Navy to figure out how to pay the “good-sized” bill for the cleanup.

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MRRA noted in this week’s budget request letter that it made a similar appeal to the Federal Aviation Administration under the Military Airports Program, which can provide grants to help convert military airports into public use. Levesque said that the request made to the FAA — which also detailed the $21.9 million emergency project — would likely have a couple-month turnout time to hear back.

“We’re working with our congressional delegation to try to expedite that,” Levesque said.

The letter also stated that the Navy informed MRRA that PFAS-removal and cleanup from the spill and other hangars is not its legal responsibility.

The letter reiterated that the suppression systems in Hangars 4, 5 and 6 were installed by the Navy and that the authority has been seeking alternatives to AFFF in its hangars. MRRA inherited the systems through a 2005 Base Realignment and Closure law, which closed former Naval Air Station Brunswick. The property was officially decommissioned in 2011.

MRRA’s current claim to Hangar 4 is a lease in Furtherance of Conveyance, which was done in place of a transfer from the Navy. Levesque said that the property transfer was held up due to groundwater issues associated with the building, which made it unsuitable for transfer. However, Hangars 5 and 6 — both of which are known to contain AFFF fire suppression systems — were deeded to MRRA in 2010, before “PFAS was even a thing” Levesque said.

“The bottom line is we want to solve the problem and get that stuff out of there,” Levesque said. “We looked at the other alternative, to put a different type of foam in there — what they call 3F foam, and there’s other foams. Knowing what occurs with emerging contaminants, we don’t want to be in the same position in 10 years that we’re in now.”

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