Dunedin Airport appears to be in the clear when it comes to firefighting chemicals implicated in groundwater contamination around the Ohakea air base.
After the Ohakea contamination came to light late last year, the Environmental Protection Authority contacted airports all around New Zealand, asking for information about the type of foam that was being used in firefighting training.
``As far as as we know, the foam used at Momona has never contained PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate),'' Dunedin International Airport chief executive Richard Roberts said yesterday.
``We and other airports don't use that foam.''
PFOS and another chemical, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) which some firefighting foams previously contained, were both banned in 2006.
From about 2000, when the airport began keeping such information on record, there was no record of PFOS being used at Dunedin Airport, Mr Roberts said. And nobody was aware of it having been used before 2000.
``But we have definitely not used PFOS after 2006, when it was banned.''
While the firefighting foam might contain the other chemical, PFOA, it would be ``in very small volumes'', Mr Roberts said. Suppliers were now trying to determine the exact amount but it was likely to be ``minute quantities''.
Dunedin had complied with the EPA request after the Ohakea contamination and provided the authority with detailed information about the foam used for firefighting training at the airport.
Given there could be tiny amounts of PFOA in the foam, nobody was using it for training purposes - ``but if there was an emergency at the airport we would use it'', Mr Roberts said.
