A Brunswick authority that oversees redevelopment of the former Navy base has corrected its count of toxic foam still stored at its airport in the wake of an August chemical spill.

The Times Record reported on the original toxic foam inventory list in early October, when the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority stated that it had 6,300 gallons of the concentrate left in the airport. The report, which the town requested after Hangar 4 malfunctioned and spilled tens of thousands of gallons of foam mixed with water on Aug. 19, was later challenged by chemist David Page in a town meeting. In a corrected inventory submitted to the town this month, the authority now reports that there is only 5,700 gallons of foam in total, decreasing the count for Hangar 6.

“It’s just an updated (report),” said MRRA’s interim Executive Director Steve Levesque. “We reverified our records, we coordinated that with Department of Environmental Protection stuff, as well as all the invoices from 2012. So, the 1,500 gallons that we originally had [for Hangar 6] in the file was wrong.”

Levesque said the reason why the inventory was wrong is because old data was used in the first report. He said that the error was “discovered in the volumes” and that the record has been corrected.

MRRA now says that Hangar 6, a building at Brunswick Executive Airport that has seen increased scrutiny, has 900 gallons of AFFF (aqueous film-forming form) concentrate. Levesque said that the new inventory is based on “further field verifications” and a DEP inventory sampling study from 2019 and 2020.

He also said that the authority reviewed 2012 invoices of a foam transfer from another hangar, the same year when Brunswick Sewer District records note that Hangar 6 dumped about 2,000 gallons of AFFF into the system. The authority confirmed that the storage tank for the foam also contains solution that was transferred from Hangar 4 — a discrepancy that Page called out in a late October council meeting.

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At the time, Page said that the original submission to the town was “misleading” and had “grave errors.” He also said the report only stated that Hangar 6 had an AFFF solution called Ansulite, when DEP data showed that the hangar actually had a mix of two different solutions: Ansulite and hundreds of gallons of a solution called 3M Lightwater.

Both foams contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — or PFAS, which are sometimes called “forever chemicals” — that are known to be harmful to human health. But Page said that 3M Lightwater contains high amounts of PFOS, a particularly harmful type of PFAS. The Environmental Protection Agency currently caps exposure to PFOS in drinking water at 4 parts per trillion, though it says that the safest exposure to PFOS is none.

Levesque said that when the authority suspected that the count was incorrect, it reassessed, both to correct the error on its own and at the request of the town.

Town Manager Julia Henze told The Times Record that after Page raised concerns about the inventory, former council Chairperson Abby King reached out with questions to MRRA. However, former MRRA Executive Director Kristine Logan had recently resigned and the matter was “dropped for a while,” Henze said.

After MRRA contracted Levesque — who was also Logan’s predecessor — to fill in, Henze said she reached back out a few weeks ago to get the inventory updated. She received the new report on Jan. 13.

Stacking concerns

The correction resolves just one of many issues that have surfaced in the wake of the spill — Maine’s worst in three decades.

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Levesque said he could not comment on what MRRA was doing to address any misinformation it may have produced, even if accidental, or how the authority planned to maintain public trust. But he noted that he is “confident” that the records now match DEP inventory reporting.

One particularly controversial issue that arose after the spill was the revelation that Hangar 4’s inspection report — which was said to be “clean” in an initial press conference — was actually faulty and out-of-date. In the wake of the Hangar 4 inspection revelation, some called for Logan to step down, which she ultimately did about a month later.

Other issues have sparked criticism, including the fact that the spill was not widely broadcasted to nearby homes and businesses on the day of. There are some residents who claim they were never formally informed of the spill at all.

Prior to Logan’s resignation, MRRA released inspection reports for Hangars 5 and 6, which showed that they were faulty and overdue for inspection. An additional document dump to the town also showed that several of the inspection reports for Hangars 4, 5 and 6 over the past eight years had come back with some form of deficiency.

Inspection revelations aside, Brunswick residents also petitioned MRRA to address the risk to private wells, though the agency did not commit to any specific action that was requested. Some also suspect that Hangar 6 is leaking PFAS into the sewer system — a speculation that has been brought up in public meetings — and citizen PFAS testing data from sewer pits near the airport show high levels of PFAS.

MRRA maintained that the only spill it is aware of at the hangar is the 2012 incident.

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Efforts to assess the current risks at the airport are still ongoing. In 2024, MRRA contracted Poole Fire Protection to conduct a study of the airport and the hangars. Levesque declined to provide data that may have become available throughout the course of the study, noting that he would rather wait until the full report is done.

However, Levesque noted that study completion is just around the corner — everything should be wrapped up by mid to late February. He also noted that other updates on hazardous substance remediation for the base, which is a superfund site, will take place next week with the Restoration Advisory Board.

Those interested in spill updates and general remediation activity at the former base can find more information at the following upcoming meetings:

• Brunswick Town Council meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 21.
• MRRA Executive Committee meeting at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22.
• Restoration Advisory Board meeting at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22.

The updated AFFF inventory list, dated Jan. 10, is available on the town’s website.

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