Crews have begun cleaning up a chemical foam spill in Mahoney Creek after officials at the city of Batavia warned residents to stay away from the creek earlier this month.
The company the city said is responsible for the spill, Flint Group, hired the environmental cleanup contractor Clean Harbors to begin initial cleanup efforts while waiting for tests on the extent of the contamination to come back, according to Batavia City Administrator Laura Newman.
She said crews have installed booms, which sit on top of the water and trap the foam, at locations throughout the creek. Crews then come daily with trucks that vacuum up the foam caught in the booms, she said.
That work began on March 15, according to the city’s webpage dedicated to the spill. Even with the cleanup efforts, foam may still be seen in the creek for several weeks, officials said.
City officials began warning residents to stay out of Mahoney Creek on March 13 after a building on North Kirk Road owned by Flint Group, a global manufacturer of print and packaging materials, leaked the foam into the creek starting on March 8, according to the city.
On that day, the building’s fire suppression system activated, potentially because of an electrical malfunction in the system, which sprayed fire suppression foam outside the building, according to a statement by Flint Group. That statement was posted on the city of Batavia’s webpage about the spill.
The foam flowed into an on-site containment basin designed to capture stormwater runoff, but that basin opened due to a separate malfunction, which leaked foam into the storm sewer until it was discovered on March 10, the statement said.
Since then, city officials regularly communicate with the company, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Kane County Health Department about the spill and cleanup efforts, according to Newman.
She said both the city and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency have done tests on the water in the creek and the soil nearby to determine the chemicals released and the extent of the contamination, but those tests have yet to be completed.
Once tests come back, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will work with Flint Group and the city’s environmental consultant to develop a remediation plan to be completed by Flint Group, Newman previously said.
According to the city’s website, those tests will likely take weeks to complete.
The chemical group known as PFAS, also sometimes called “forever chemicals” because of the extremely long time they take to break down in the environment, is the main concern from the foam spill, according to Newman.
“The testing takes quite a bit of time for PFAS because it’s a very difficult testing process,” Newman said. “We also discussed a plan to share our testing results once they are received.”
She said the fire fighting foam, which is called an aqueous film-forming foam or AFFF, contained PFAS because it was manufactured sometime around 2007. Specifically, the chemical is Ansulite Low Viscosity 3×3 AR-AFFF Foam Concentrate, the city’s website says.
According to the federal EPA, PFAS are man-made chemicals known to cause cancer, reproductive problems, developmental issues and other negative health effects.
Because they break down very slowly, they build up over time in people, animals and the environment, the EPA’s website on the chemical group says.
Signs have been placed along the creek warning people away. In some areas, plastic fencing and “no trespassing” signs can be seen blocking access to the creek.
According to the city’s website, crews have also quarantined areas of concern in several residential yards, cleaned the ditch along Kirk Road and conducted decontamination and cleanup at the Flint Group plant.
Crews will also continue to identify properties with wells near Mahoney Creek and work with them to develop a long-term sampling plan, the city’s website says.
Officials previously said that the spill is not anticipated to impact the city’s water supply because it does not use water from the creek or from the Fox River, where the creek connects, for its drinking water.
A Flint Group representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent on Friday about the clean-up efforts, but a previous statement from the company said it “remains steadfast in our commitment to addressing this incident responsibly and implementing necessary measures to mitigate any environmental effects.”
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
