Fire retardants in general are pretty terrible. Great example of unintended consequences of overzealous regulation. Now we don’t have fires but are killing ourselves with pfoas on our pillows, mattresses evetthing.

Let's not blame overzealous regulation. I am sure unregulated business would have found the cheapest way to manage fires (if the fires were detrimental) with no regard to environmental consequences

The US military has a long history of toxicity. For example, there's an artificial island in the middle of SF Bay, where they stored ships after they were irradiated during nuclear testing, which had to be cleaned up as more housing was built: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island,_San_Francisco...

and also Hunter's Point, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunters_Point_Naval_Shipyard#S... where the cleanup company lied and left a bunch of contaminated materials.

I shouldn't forget to mention the superfund sites around the golden gate bridge. And that's just the SF Bay.

This is absolutely terrible. Only awareness and outcry can stop an effort this large. Spread this far and wide!

It was not totally clear what kind of substance AFFF was, but the article mentioned in one paragraph that it's PFAS (perfluoroalkyl substances), which is again a group of compounds, but chiefly PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid).

Chemically, why does this kind of material have such staying power? Been a long time since chemistry classes in college, but I’m curious to understand more about why these things are so hard to get rid of. Is there a relationship between their resistance to deteriorating and their ability to suppress flame?

The carbon-fluorine bond is the strongest bond known in organic chemistry. And PFOS has seventeen of them.

Thanks. What makes it so strong? Are there any chemical processes known to break down these bonds?

These pages will I think answer your questions. (Sorry, I don't feel qualified to summarize them.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon%E2%80%93fluorine_bond

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organofluorine_chemistry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorocarbon

As I remember from my A Level Chemistry, a principle of Chemistry is that to chemically break the bond of a chemical, the new products need to be forming a “stronger bond” than the ingredents. Otherwise the ony method left is to bombard the chemical in side a particle accelerators.