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Fresh leak of toxic firefighting foam near Brisbane raises more waterway fears

Firefighting foam, shown here in a controlled test, has prompted warnings against eating fish from certain Brisbane waterways.

Firefighting foam, shown here in a controlled test, has prompted warnings against eating fish from certain Brisbane waterways.

Toxic firefighting foam might have spilled into a creek north of Brisbane within a month of similar foam leaking into the Brisbane River.

The spill of 550 litres of liquid at Narangba in Moreton Bay was considered minor in comparison to the earlier spill at Brisbane airport, the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection said in a statement on Saturday.

A transport container of a firefighting foam with a poly-fluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) ruptured at a Toxfree waste disposal site and flowed into a drain upstream from Lagoon Creek.

The department said early tests didn’t suggest the foam had contaminated the creek but further testing was under way.

The leak comes as Queenslanders are told to avoid seafood caught in waters affected by the leak of 22,000 litres of similar chemicals from a Qantas hangar at Brisbane airport on April 10.

While prawns, crabs, squid and water sampled between Shorncliffe, Mud Island and Breakfast Creek showed the levels of toxic perfluorooctanoic acid, a form of PFAS, was decreasing, Queensland’s acting chief health officer Dr Mark Elcock warned against eating anything caught in the area.
-AAP

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