3M ~ How they Paved their Golden Highway in the Fire Service… via the NFPA
It takes many hours of reading to see find and research the documents that are shown here. Many of these items came from they MN AG herself. In the 5 years of this research, what has began as a quest to prove myself wrong I’ve only seen more names that knew of this toxic chemical and said nothing while working in our fire institutions. These documents are all available online. Diane Cotter 3.30.2020
2019
from; Testimony of Lori Swanson Former Minnesota Attorney General Before the Committee on Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment United States House of Representatives September 10, 2019
page 23 of 66
1988: CEO of Boots & Coots fires shots at 3M for lying to them in the most epic mantastic manner possible… https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO28/20190910/109902/HHRG-116-GO28-Wstate-SwansonL-20190910.pdf
SUBJECT: FOAM SYSTEMS TESTING. BEALE A.F.B. CALIFORNIA.
IN ALL LITERATURE AND DOCUMENTATION THAT IS PUBLISHED BY THE MAJOR MANUFACTURERS OF A.F.F’.F, CONCENTRATE, IT IS CLAIMED THAT THESE PRODUCTS ARE BIODEGRADABLE.
FURTHERMORE VERBAL PRESENTATIONS MADE BY VARIOUS MANUFACTURERS REPRESENTATIVES HAVE ALSO INDICATED THAT THESE PRODUCTS ARE BIODEGRADABLE. THERE IS ALSO AN ARTICLE PREPARED BY MASSELLI ET.AL. WITH WHICH SOME DEGREE OF ACCURACY INDICATED THAT MATERALS WITH A B.O.D. OF 20/C.O,D. RELATIONSHIP GREATER THAT 05 ARE READILY BIODEGRADABLE.
SINCE THE U.SS MILITARY SPECIFICATION CALLS FOR A MINIMUM RELATIONSHIP OF 0.65 (MIL-f-24385D (DRAFT) AND DATA PRESENTED TO THE GOVERNMENT INDICATES THIS RELATIONSHIP TO BE 0.7 - 0.9, WE COULD ASSUME THE PRODUCTS ARE BIODEGRADABLE.
IMAGINE THE SURPRISE AND TOTAL SHOCK WHEN THE BOOTS AND COOTS OFFICE IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA RECEIVES A TELEPHONE CALL FROM GRINNELL FIRE PROTECTION IN SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA TELLING US THAT 3M 3% A.F.F.F, CONCENTRATE IS NOT BIODEGRADABLE.
THIS INFORMATION, THEY CLAIM, WAS GIVEN TO THEM DURING A ONE HOUR TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BY A “PH.D. ;SCIENTIST, CHEMIST” BY THE NAME OF ERIC REIMER AT THE 3M COMPANY. IMAGINE FURTHER, OUR EMBARRASSMENT ………. (you get the picture,, 3M lied to everyone)…
2009; Intent to sue DuPont
https://www.hpcbd.com/dupont/Notice-of-intent-to-sue-Dupont.pdf
For the last 20 years DuPont and 3M had been the voting members of the NFPA.
The NFPA is the ‘gold standard’ by which first responders rely on…
DuPont and 3M hit in NFPA wining, dining, and ‘seminaring’ with the fire institutions that were designed to protect the fleet… NOT ONCE did either of these giants discuss the harmful effects of their own products they were selling to firefighters like my husband, while voting on their own products withing the only institution we have to protect us..
2001: NFPA 11 Committee member’s notes about 3M getting out of the AFFF business…
because the foam was a ‘death sentence’.. still.. no one warned the fleet.. only the suits at the ‘NFPA’ our own safety institution knew….
2000
DuPont and 3M meet to discuss PFOA…
3M appeared? to tell DuPont they saw problems with PFOA… DuPont did not want to hear it.
Both sit as voting members of the only institution firefighters have in place to protect them.
The only institution they can rely on to receive and purchase ‘safe’ non toxic equipment to use.
Neither said a word to the fleet.
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1721.pdf
3M tells its employees its getting out of the fluorochemistry business for
responsible business practices… no one tells the fire service… the front line..the first responders.. the firefighters.. using the poison.. no one tells NFPA.. ONLYduring a ‘off time’ ?? conversation is this discussed with NFPA… no one in that meeting took it upon themselves to do anything to protect the fleet.. of military or civilian firefighting departments…
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1690.pdf
Nov 1999.
3M order to construct the science to fit their agenda. This while knowing they serve on the only institution firefighters have the NFPA, as voting members of the AFFF committees
- the only organization first responders trust — to protect them…
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1630.pdf
OCT 1999
3M’s Dr Geary Olsen telling 3M to flood the research journals with their own supporting science… in their favor..
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1618.pdf
saw Dave Sanders’ note to you regarding we can’t do anything without the core team’s permission. This is so the lawyers try to control everything — except they can’t in this case because if they deny the presentation of the results at your IH conference, it will also have to mean that they will deny publication of our findings in a scientific journal and that is not a smart thing to do given the FC issue. If we don’t publish, publish and publish, others will fill this void in the next few years.
1987
FC-143 Final Results : Lydig Cell Tumor Incidence — tumors were grossly visible.
No word to the firefighters using FC-143 …. no word in NFPA.. no warning of any kind.
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1342.pdf
Jan 1981:
FIRE FIGHTER TRAINER ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a109615.pdf
PG 120 of 140.
3M’s W.H. Pearlson sent copy.
Pearlson was 3M’s attorney. He got word.. you the disposable fleet did not.
September 1981
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1260.pdf
I explained how effective Light Water is in enabling rescue crews to rescue people trapped in aircraft and other petroleum fires
that this wasn’t as possible in previous years. I explained the “flash back” angle and how fast Light Water puts out petroleum based fires. He said he’d only seen Light Water used once (?) and acknowledged it worked fast. When Ligh= Water is used,
I said fire fighters normally are covered head to toe with heavy protective clothing.
Once again I repeated that 3M knows of no evidence that suggests fire ~fighters are exposed to a health danger
because ~they use Light Water
W.H. Pearlson cc’d (3M attorney knew.. not the disposable fleet)
January 1979:
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1193.pdf
90-Day Subacute Rhesus Monkey Toxicity Study.
May 1978:
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1172.pdf
Those present met on May 8, I978 to discuss results of the 90 day animal studies carried out at International Research and Development Corporation. The dosing phase of the studies on rats using FC-95, FM-3422 and FC-143 have been completed.
Results indicate that FC-95, FM-3422 and FC-143 are toxic.
ASK THE EXPERTS…. APRIL 1978 ( this is upsetting as it sets FF’s up
to be the ignorant sacrifice at our own expense and at 3M’s advertising
whim)
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1165.pdf
same thing here: https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1164.pdf
December 1977
ORGANIC FLUORINE C~POUNI)S IN BLOOI) CHRONOLOGY
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1145.pdf
August 9, 1977
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1142.pdf
, the fluorine containing part of the compounds in the isolate (from human plasma) resemble perfluorooctanoic acid. Derivatives of this compound are widely used as surfactants.
No toxicological studies of these compounds appear to have been published.
Philippe Grandjean 2018:
the hidden studies ~
But the 1978 monkey study had shown that the immune system was affected by PFOA. The study was not published nor was there a follow-up. And without the published research, the compounds were spread into the environment without scrutiny, Grandjean said.
“Had I found out in 1978 that this industrial chemical was toxic to the immune system, I could see all sorts of examinations of exposed kids that could be done, but I was not told, so it had to wait, this case 30 years, before I turned my attention to this,” he said.
1977
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1139.pdf
. Summary
A 28-day oral toxicity study was conducted in which groups of albino mice were fed dietary concentrations of 0, 30, 100, 300, 1,000, 3,000, I0,000, or 30.000 parts of FC-143 per million parts of diet.
All males and females fed 1,000 ppm or more of FC-143 died within the first 9 days of testing.
All T-TTT (300 ppm) mice except I male died 26 days of testing. One animal died in each of the 30 and I00 ppm test groups.
1974 The global foothold secured:
But,, maybe it all began here with the marriage of 3M and Naval Resarch Labs in NFPA.
1974–3M ‘s Gary Buford and on NFPA Foam Committee:
Report of Committee on Foam
https://www.nfpa.org/Assets/files/AboutTheCodes/11/TCRA-1975-11.pdf
R. R. Burford, 3M Company
H. B. Peterson, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
A CHEMICAL HISTORY OF 3M by 3M’r Neil MacKay
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1365.pdf
Chapter 18:
A Decade of Churning 1962
The 1960s have been described as the Chemical Division’s decade of churning by a retired 3Mer who was in charge of CCD in the Seventies.
When the decade dawned, one of the division’s most successful and most profitable products was a surfactant sold as a leveling agent for self-polishing floor polishes. That application would be diminished by the development of no-wax floor tiles and linoleum, but the surfactant survived. Another surfactant (still holding its own in the 1990s) was being sold to Udylite as a mist and vapor suppressant in chrome plating operations
When permanent press fell from its pinnacle after a brief heyday, it took stain release with it. And, the only leather industry customer buying Scotchgard repeller was Wolverine Shoe Company. Furthermore, Scotchguard size was still blocked from entering its most proraising market, food packaging, pending approval from the Food and Drug Administration
The Division Laboratory and Commercial Development Department were frustrated by their inability to ferret out more applications for surfactants. They decided to gain exposure by resuscitating a successful technique from 1950, That tactic was to tell the world about fluorochemical surfactants and see who might jump up and say, ’I’ve got an application.” Instead of presenting papers at meetings, however, which was the technique used during the previous decade, the Division advertised in trade magazines circulated to ~he chemical industry. Each advertisement invited readers to request information or samples. When replies were received Marketing mailed back a questionnaire which asked the inquirer to define his application idea.
Application information received was evaluated by the Laboratory and the Commercial Development Department. Then, if a sample had been requested, one was sent without identifying its chemical structure. With that, the Division obtained application ideas without divulging proprietary information, and interesting leads could be followed up by telephone or direct contact.
Whenever a sample cast upon the commercial waters resulted in an order, Mordaunt’s department knew the intended use for the surfactant and could determine whether to pursue the application with similar prospects. By early 1962 several hundred sample requests had been filled and a number of small accounts covering a variety of applications developed. Unfortunately, none looked capable of producing worthwhile profits.
Then, on March 2, a questionnaire was returned from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) near Washington, D.C. Dr. Richard L. Tuve requested a sample of a surfactant that could improve resistance to breakdown of aqueous foams caused by silicones. A sample was sent and two months later Maynard Olson followed with a visit. At NRL he learned that the Navy researchers were trying to develop a fire-fighting foam that ’ would be stable in the presence of silicone treated potassium bicarbonate, a dry chemical used to extinguish petroleum fires.
More samples were sent and ideas and information exchanged. Eventually, Tuve and an employee, Henry Peterson, met with 3M’s scientists in the third floor conference room of the Benz building. Maynard Olson, Bob Burford and Dick Guenthner represented 3M. (Later, Guenthner began working with surfactants and continued that endeavor f~r the rest of his thirty-eight-year career. A native of Bridgewater, South Dakota, with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the state’s university, Guenthner arrived at 3M in 1947 after spending three years with Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York.)
(Naval Research Labs H.Peterson and 3M’s Bob Burford would work together on NFPA …. I’m showing how and where the foothold began… and this chapter paints a vivid description of 3M and NRL working together .. )
When the visitors entered the Benz building, Henry Peterson was carrying a small can containing gasoline, several sealed test tubes, a metal tray and an ultraviolet light. Navy scientists, Dick Tuve explained, had mixed a solution of 3M surfactant and water with interesting results which he wanted to show to 3M. Peterson poured gasoline into the tray and added the solution from a test tube. The solution had been treated to make it visible under UV light. Peterson turned on the light and the 3Mers saw the fluorochemical mixture spreading across the surface of the gasoline
“I don’t need to tell you how flammable gasoline vapors are,” Tuve said. “Now, watch this.” Peterson lighted a match and held it near the surface. Nothing happened. There was no flareup. “There’s the basis for a new product,” Tuve continued. “If it can be combined with a foam, it could be effective in stopping jet fuel fires. That’s what the Navy wants and needs. We know that in many airplane crashes the pilot isn’t killed by the impact, but burns to death in the wreckage.” Lives could be saved if fires could be quelled and victims pulled from the wreckage within three minutes, Tuve said
The accepted fire fighting product of the day was protein foam, but that product could not seal the surface of a petroleum fire. When breaks occurred in the foam, the gasoline vapor could re-ignite.
The Navy had tested hundreds of products, but not one was effective. Foam was a necessary ingredient of any successful product, he went on, because it provided depth for the blanket and carried the fire fighting product across the surface to replenish the supply when and where it was needcd.
3M’s scientists went to work and by the summer of 1962 the Navy researchers +tested a formulation based on 3M’s L-1083 product on a fire. The test site was The Ansul Chemocial Company in Marinctte, Wisconsin, because Ansul was the chief supplier of dry chemical systems to the Navy
On August 8, Rogers and Frank Warner of 3M’s Government Service Department in Washington visited the Navy laboratory in Maryland to obtain more information about the Navy’s requirements. A lot of development work remained to be done, Tuve said, before 3M’s surfactant would be acceptable.
3M, Ansul and the Navy working together continued to develop a systemfor dispensing what was referred to in reports and correspondence as “light water.’” (Navy researchers had begun to use that term after they learned that their mixture of surfactant and water formed a thin layer on the surface of gasoline. Soon 3M and others began using the appellation, too.) Ansui also used 3M samples to conduct tests involving hydrocarbon vapor suppression and the treatment of dry chemicals. Other companies in the foam business became interested and began working with the Navy and later 3M under the assumption that companies in the foam business would manufacture the fluorocarbon foam when it was perfected.
In the spring of 1963 Navy researchers tested a formulation they believed might be what they were seeking. After they requested more and larger quantities of the surfactant, 3M decided to get into the formulating business. The product the Navy seemed to like was FX-1831 which consisted of one part concentrate and three parts fresh water. It was stored in pressurized vessels and was expelled by nitrogen and refrigerant gas. The system was effective, but was economically limited to small semi-portable systems. Eventually fire trucks carried 3M’s product and water in separate tanks, the system still used today
Ansul Chemical also built fire-fighting units that used dry chemicals with a premixed solution of FX-1831 and proved that system’s effectiveness in November 1963 iri a test for the Air Force. 3M’s foam without the dry chemical also was tested against protein foam at that time its superiority was obvious to bystanders, including Motdaunt and Burford, the latter 3M’s laboratory contact with the Navy. That test proved conclusively that “light water” did not need dry chemicals to he effective because it was superior to protein foam all by itself.
Bolstered by that finding, Mordaunt surveyed the market and learned that FX-1831 could not compete against the six percent protein foam concentrate. 3M’s product not only was priced too high, but it could not be used with existing equipment, so 3M turned its efforts toward producing a competitive product. By August 1965 — nine months after the successful test at Ansul — a satisfactory six percent light water concentrate designated FC: 1941 was developed. About that time 3M registered Light Water~ aqueous film forming foam (shortened to AFFF) as its trade name, which was approved in 1966.
Reformulation work and Navy testing continued into 1967. That spring the Navy in a monitored experiment supplied five major naval air stations with FC-1941. 3M continued its own testing and pursued the Navy’s request to improve FC-1941’s compatibility with salt water; Tuve’s group had learned that the product’s effectiveness was reduced greatly when it was mixed with sea water. Most of 3M’s efforts, however, were aimed at improving production capabilities and evaluating FC-1941’s performance with fresh water.
Time dragged on and it seemed that the Navy would never be satisfied, would never start ordering Light Water AFFF in profitable quantities. Unfortunately, the balance was tipped by a shipboard tragedy. On July 29, 1967 the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was ravaged by a flight deck fire in the South China sea. The blaze was contained, then flashed up again and again. It spread to armed jet aircraft and the resulting explosions and fires killed one hundred and thirty four sailors and airmen. The disaster also caused more than one hundred million dollars worth of damage to the carrier, which limped back to the States for repairs and was out of service for nearly a year
The tragedy had been magnified by the failure of protein foam and dry chemical agents to prevent reflashing of aviation gasoline
The day after the fire Navy brass in Washington were given Light Water AFFF demonstrations. Immediately, twelve systems were ordered flown to the Philippines and placed in service on other carriers. The Navy also urgently requested 3M to develop a formulation that would be compatible with sea w~ter. That urgency wits relayed to 3M’s researchers and the result .was offered to the Navy for testing that yc~tr.
It had taken five years to convert the Navy from a prospect It) 3M’s first Light Water AFFF customer. The next priority prospect was the Air Force.
Mikc Harnetty* now Vice-President of ICPD, was in the vanguard of that sales expedition. Hc vividly remembers sales calls made at an air base near Kansas City where Fire Chief Darryl Saul was a difficult nut to crack. Harnetty made countless calls trying to convcrl the hostile chief into ~ friendly customer), The major problem was that Saul, like every Air Force fireman, knew that the Navy had helped to develop Light Water AFFF. Inter-service rivalries are strong: what one service develops is likely to be eschewed by others, It was extremely difficult to overcome that prejudice and on each call, Harnetty, despite his size, absorbed nasty remarks and comments from the fire chief
(Rude behavior is encountered by every salesman. “You just have to ignore it and keep coming back,” Jim Rogers said. “You must remember that you’re not trying to make yourself look good. You’re trying to sell products.”)
Saul’s hostility was especially galling to Harnetty because the Air Force had been using ineffective fire-fighting foams on petroleum fires for years. Airmen’s lives and the well-being of the men who fought aircraft fires depended on their equipment. Firemen bet their lives on those products, so Harnetty and the Division were convinced that the Air Force could not afford to hold out forever
Oddly enough, Light Water AFFF lacked credibility with some prospects. Skeptics simply could not believe that fires requiring five to ten minutes or more to quell with protein foam could be doused in one to two minutes with 3M’s new chemical. Articles published in trade magazines citing the effectiveness of Light Water AFFF in fighting shipboard and naval base fires were not believed, either. Unless doubters would agree to a demonstration, those beliefs could not be changed.
Five years after the Navy began ordering Light Water AFFF, 3M still had not overcome the Air Force’s resistance. Then 3M luck took charge. In the early 1970s, an Air Force jet crashed and burst into flame ~l an air base in England. By coincidence, a group of military officers and a gaggle of news media representatives were assembled at the base waiting to see a Light Water AFFF demonstration. The scenario called for two fire trucks to speed into video camera range where fircmcn would smother a test blaze. Still-picture cameramen. and reporters were also poised to record that event.
Moments before the test blaze was to be ignited, the jet crashed just off a runway a few hundred yards away. The trucks equipped for the lest sped to the burning plane and quickly doused the flames. Two airmen, frightened and injured, but alive, were dragged from the blackened wreckage as cameras whirred, shutters clicked and writers scribbled notes. That publicity was fantastic. How many times does a company get its product right down front in a major news story? But, as effective as it was, it took an officer to finally convince the Air Force. Colonel Jack Salmon, a part of the Air Force officialdom in the nation’s capital, was a convert from the fire in England. “I’m going to get your product specified no matter what opposition I run into,” he told Jim Rogers. And, he did. Salmon also predicted that 3M sales of its product to the Air Force would triple the business 3M was doing with the Navy. He was right about that, too.
But, despite Salmon’s accomplishment, Harnetty’s job at Kansas City was not made easier, it still required nearly two years to get that first order from Fire Chief Saul, but then to Harnetty’s pleasant surprise, he not only had a customer, but a spokesman for 3M’s product. On order of the chief, demonstrations and seminars were set up for firemen on all three shifts at the base. Harnetty made the presentations, showed 3M films and distributed written materials. Then, Saul set up another presentation to a visiting general which was of great benefit to Harnetty and 3M. Saul was limited to spending ten thousand dollars on any project, but no such restraints applied to the general. Soon every fire truck on the base was converted to carry 3M’s product.
Saul was not the first Air Force fire chief to buy into the program. Harnetty made the first Light Water AFFF sale to the Air Force in November 1970 at Elisworth Air Force base, a Strategic Air Command facility, near Rapid City, South .Dakota. Again, tragedy was the catalyst as a B52 bomber crashed and burned. The base supply of protein foam was. exhausted before the blaze was extinguished, so a test quantity of Light Water AFFF that happened to be on hand was used. It doused the flames quickly and almost as quickly resulted in a twenty five thousand dollar order for Harnetty.
Since those early pioneering days with Light Water AFrFF, 3M’s product has been used to extinguish large and small petrochemical fires in the United States and other parts of the world.
In the late 1970s a new formulation was designed to fight alcohol fires. The change was necessary because alcohol, which has an affinity for water, extracts water from Light Water AFFF concentrate. The new formulation not only solved that problem, but often is used in smaller concentrations compared with Light Water AFFF to fight petroleum fires. It is considered the premier product in 3M’s Light Water AFFF product line.
Years ago, oil-rich lran was 3M’s biggest overseas customer, partly because it had one of the world’s largest air bases and partly because han fc,’~red its neighbors. Later, Saudi Arabia reigned as 3M’s largest f’~)t’ci~tt ctl.,,tt)mcr, I’~t_’calnsc of ils ~til’ i’()l’t’c nccd.~ and its large pclr~chemical industry.
In 1991. as it has for many years, Light Water AFFF is stored and used in every Navy, Air Force and Army base having a flammable liquid fire potential everywhere in the world.
By the time Les Krogh became General Manager of CCD in 1973, Light Water AFFF had won acceptance by the military, but had not penetrated very far into civilian markets except for aircraft rescue uses. The one exception was California, where fire fighting uses of 3M’s product totaled nearly one hundred percent through diligent sales efforts. The major obstacle to expanding civilian sales were the companies that manufacture trucks, fire-fighting tanks and extinguishing materials. Those firms controlled distribution of products to that market then as they do today
To concentrate on that market worldwide, Krogh established a Fire Protection Systems Project (later Department) with Jim Rogers as Manager. Dave Shryer, who had been marketing Light Water AFFF since 1965, joined the project. Bob Burford became Laboratory Manager (and sat on NFPA 11 in 1974 with H. Peterson from NRL…)
. Jim Salter, Area Sales Manager on the West Coast, came in as Sales Manager.
Shryer had a successful sales career before turning to marketing. In 1960 he became the first 3M Sales Representative to sell a million dollars worth of chemical products in one year. With a chemical engineering degree earned in 1947 at Purdue University, he began in chemical processing and manufacturing areas with Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. But, by September 1949, Shryer was employed at 3M operating a vacuum metabolizing pilot plant for the New Products Department in the Benz building. He was still with NPD in 1955 when the Chemical Group was formed and two years later he was the Chemical Division Sales Representative in Dayton, Ohio, assigned to the Cincinnati branch.
The Fire Protection Systems Department was taken back into the Division in 1978. It was strong in sales to the government, but had made lilllc Tom Reid, who discovered the chrome complex back in the 1950s, worked in the United States Department of Agriculture before coming to 3M and talked about his ideas regarding fluorochemical herbicides as early as 1949. Thousands of compounds were synthesized and evaluated as herbicides and plant growth regulators over the years. The most promising were subjected to exhaustive environmental and toxicology studies to assure that new products could be developed safely. And, to satisfy requirements of government agencies, including the Environmental’Protection Agency (EPA). By 1968 CRL developed a grass growth regulator. Later the Laboratory developed a herbicide to control a variety of weed species including nutsedge, which can damage cotton, tobacco and rice fields, plus a chemical to control nematodes penetration into the commercial markets. Eventually, however, the objective of a broad-based commercial business was achieved.
Rogers retired on March I~ 1979, and lives in North Carolina. Shryer retired in 1989 and stayed in the Twin Cities
JUNE 1970
Chemical Concentrates Corporation — Letter to the Editor of Fire Journal re: Lightwater
LETTER TO NFPA
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Cases/3M/docs/PTX/PTX1083.pdf
Sir:
At the recent NFPA Meeting in Toronto information about the toxicity of “Light Water” was asked of me frequently. We had made a limited study on the effects of “Light Water” on marine life in preparation for substantial and controlled field tests. These effects were highly derogatory to marine life and the entire test program had to be abandoned to avoid severe local stream pollution. I am asked by concerned people to report our data~ on the “Light Water-” studied ~and do herewith comply.
The only commercially available product was FC-194 and this was checked over a range which allowed for 48-fold to 16, 000 -fold dilution. These results are reported. Other “Light V~rater” formula&ions not commercially available were also checked and the results were similar.
There appeared to be two principal possible causes of death for all the fish. The erratic motion, rapid rotation and general inability to retain upright led to the apparent drowning of the fish. The same characteristic, by which fluorochemical greatly lowers the interracial tension allowing for film formation, also permits the intrusion of ~water as the oil film on~which protection of the fish’s stabilizing mechanism depends’- is destroyed by the fluorochemical; The fish appears to drown as a result. There also appears to be an attack on his nervous system as evidenced by high speed swimming and crashing headlong into the sides and bottom of the tank.
IN ALL THESE YEARS….. WHY.. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD… WHY DID NO ONE WARN THE FLEET???
#GreatestDeceptionEver
#DarkWaters