• happybadger [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I worked as a hospital corpsman attached to a few fire departments. We'd routinely use this shit without any PPE beyond normal maskless firefighting gear. I saw dogs and kids run through it during family days when they show off their station. Our training site on one base was right next to the base housing where all the women and children lived. It'd just drain into normal sewers. One of the first pieces of advice I was given in Japan was that something in the water was causing birth defects, at the time thought to be old CBRNE contamination from when they stored nukes and bio/chemical weapons on Japanese airbases. When I got back I looked into PFOS/PFOA and immediately scheduled a vasectomy. Our understanding of this contamination is still in its infancy and I used it just as routinely in California as I did overseas draining into the same kind of sewers. Presumably any base with DoD fire and probably civil aviation fire departments used/uses it. Along with microplastics, I think this is going to be known as one of the big hidden plagues of this era. God damn America.