"Firefighting foam contaminated groundwater beneath O’Hare and Midway airports with PFAS chemicals, military investigators have found. It’s unclear how far it has spread."

"When an American Airlines jetliner caught fire on an O’Hare Airport runway in October 2016, firefighters rushed to the scene.

Within three minutes, they’d blanketed the flames with a suffocating foam, a product used at airports for half a century.

Known as AFFF, it has been used by Chicago and military firefighters because it can extinguish intense jet fuel fires.

The foam, now being phased out, also contains toxic substances known as forever chemicals that have been linked to cancers, liver damage, low birth weights, high cholesterol and other health threats."

Brett Chase reports for the Chicago Sun-Times November 10, 2023. [2]