A PLAN to address the PFAS “hotspot” at Jersey Airport is being developed in what would be “a really important step” in tackling the so-called forever chemicals’ presence in the Island, the Environment Minister has said.
Deputy Steve Luce made the comments during a hearing with the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel yesterday afternoon.
Next week, the States Assembly will debate Deputy Luce’s proposition to introduce a statutory limit for PFAS in mains water that would restrict it to a third of its current level.
Contamination stemming from the historical use of firefighting foams at the Airport that contained PFAS has been subject to extensive research, including a hydrogeological risk assessment by environmental consultancy Arcadis.
PFAS has been detected in both groundwater and surface water in the Island.
The Airport’s fire-training ground has been identified as a primary source area, though Deputy Luce has previously highlighted that “the detection of PFAS in wider Island groundwater and surface waters is understood to reflect a range of historical and diffuse sources and should not be interpreted as arising solely from activities at Jersey Airport”.
Speaking during yesterday’s hearing, Deputy Luce acknowledged ongoing work in relation to “the remediation of the hotspot at the Airport fire-training ground, or the Airport generally”.
“We will shortly have some sort of proposal from Ports, as to how they propose to remediate that,” he continued.
“Once we can stop the PFAS escaping from the site, that’s a really important step for us because what we need to do is to go back to source – we can make all the filtrations and all the different types of processes you like further out, but if you can stop the source that’s a really good start.
“So we know we have got a hotspot at the Airport, we will shortly have a plan to see how we can stop that happening.”
Earlier this month, Infrastructure Minister Andy Jehan told the same scrutiny panel that PFAS levels detected at the Island’s sewage treatment works had reduced by two-thirds since the Airport had its licence to pump wastewater through the sewer network suspended.
