FL lawmakers propose ban on toxic firefighting foam linked to water and soil contamination TALLAHASSEE, FL – State lawmakers are weighing a ban on a highly effective but toxic foam widely used to suppress flammable-liquid fires that is leaking into water supplies and sickening people, with firefighters at the forefront of the worldwide battle with “forever chemicals.” Due to public health and environmental concerns, the foam was banned in the United Kingdom last year and in Australia in 2018. Several U.S. states, including New York and Michigan, ban most uses of it. The U.S. Department of Defense is phasing it out this year. The effort this year by lawmakers to ban the substance comes years after state and federal findings that numerous military installations, airports and firefighter training centers in Florida are riddled with forever chemicals, called PFAS (which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), in water and soil. That is because the toxic firefighting foam, which...