Environmental Management of Firefighting Foam and Queensland’s transition to fluorine-free foams

Nigel Holmes is Principal Advisor Incident Management for the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, the regulatory body for pollution management and incident response in Queensland.

His role is as a state-wide resource advising on policy, standards, risk assessment, preparedness and response for incidents involving a diversity of hazardous materials.

Nigel has over 30 years’ multi-disciplinary experience in consulting and government roles across environmental, geotechnical and contamination assessment, regulation and policy development for land, marine, freshwater and groundwater pollution assessment, industry licensing, remediation, aquaculture and geotechnical assessment.

Since 2012 Nigel has been the project coordinator for the review, development and drafting of the Queensland Environmental Management of Firefighting Foam Operational Policy (2016 and amended 2021) supported by extensive advice and input from a very wide range of Australian and international subject experts on PFAS and firefighting.  More recently this has included input to the Stockholm Convention restrictions on the use of PFAS and the Basel Convention methods of destruction. The Queensland foam Policy has been widely referenced as a model for the transition from PFAS to non-persistent firefighting foams.

Queensland firefighting foam Policy

• Environmental Management of Firefighting Foam Policy (2016): Project researcher, coordinator and primary author. Policy adopted in 2016 to regulate toxic, dispersive, persistent fluorinated organic chemicals in firefighting foam.
• Provision of expert advice on risks of fluorinated organic compounds: to foam end-users, suppliers and regulators across Australia on the practical assessment and management of risks posed by existing and proposed use of firefighting foams.
• Liaison with interstate and overseas agencies on consistency of regulatory measures: Promoting consistency in the practical, achievable and economic regulation of PFAS.
• Queensland, Australian and international industry liaison: Promoting information sharing and a balanced understanding of the issues and risk considerations through conferences and seminars.
• Facilitation of new analytical methods for PFAS risk assessment: Promoting the refinement of the total oxidisable precursor assay (TOP-A) and incorporation into Policy as a more comprehensive method than the limited standard PFAS suite.
• PFAS regulated waste disposal: Facilitated the development and licensing of cement kilns for safe and environmentally sustainable destruction of PFAS wastes.
• Queensland foam Policy implementation and compliance plan: Identification of industry sectors with PFAS firefighting foam and development of strategies and guidance on the practical transition to best-practice for foam use.
• Inquiries into impacts of firefighting foam: Allied to the review of the effects of fluorinated organics in the development of the Queensland foam Policy were invitations to present at the Fiskville Inquiry (twice), an invited submission to the Senate Inquiry and facilitation of an overseas Victorian Parliamentary delegation to Germany and Norway to review European experiences of PFAS contamination.
• Stockholm Convention POP Review Committee 14 2018 (Rome): Queensland Government representative observer for the review of restrictions on the socio-economic impacts of the use of PFAS in firefighting foam. Presenter on the regulator’s perspective on the risks, management and regulation of PFAS use and contamination.
• Basel Convention POPs wastes disposal 2022: Input to the Basel Convention General Technical Guidelines for POPs Wastes on PFAS destruction using cement kiln co-processing.