Cancer – a six-letter word that burns when it hits the ears.
“I’m just waiting for the doctor to tell me I have cancer,” said Capt. Ray Richards, a firefighter from Spotsylvania County, Virginia. “I hope it doesn’t happen, but the reality of it is, someday those words are probably going to be said.”
That very word lit a fire, not only under the firefighting community, but also the farming community, known for planting seeds of change.
From farm to fire, Richards joined leaders from Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council (MSR&PC), Wisconsin Soybean, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and firefighter colleagues from across the country Aug. 16 at Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) in Eau Claire to see how a new product, SoyFoam TF 1122, is extinguishing fears of a cancer diagnosis – a leading cause of death among firefighters in the U.S.
“If we can do things now to prevent the younger generation in the fire service from being in that situation, why not find a way to make that happen?” Richards said.
Funded by the soy checkoff, SoyFoam has blazed a trail between two organizations that serve as the backbones of communities across Minnesota and beyond.
“Soybean checkoff dollars went into the development and testing of this product, so it’s funded by the American farmer and uses soybeans grown by the American farmer,” said MSR&PC Director Glen Groth, who farms near Winona and attended the SoyFoam demonstration. “It’s a win-win for rural America.”
Minnesota solution
The timing is important for Minnesota. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has already begun to implement Minnesota’s new law that bans nonessential use of PFAS. The state is also implementing a new law effective Jan. 1, 2025, making it illegal to sell or distribute some products with intentionally added PFAS in Minnesota. That follows with a statewide ban on intentionally added PFAS in products, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2032.
As part of the contingency in Eau Claire, MSR&PC turned to the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association to bring in key players from MPCA, including Assistant Commissioner Dana Vanderbosch, who along with key PFAS experts from her staff, took in the demonstration and even had the opportunity to extinguish fires using SoyFoam.
“We were very pleased to have the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Assistant Commissioner Dana Vanderbosch and three of the agency’s PFAS reduction team attend the SoyFoam event,” said Mike Youngerberg, MSR&PC sr. director of product development and commercialization. “Given that MPCA is the lead state agency charged with mitigating the impact PFAS currently has on our environment, as well as to find new and safer products to replace them, SoyFoam can do the job.”
Soy much room for growth
SoyFoam’s developer, Cross Plains Solutions, also had staff on site to share in the success of the product. Cross Plains Solutions pings this product as 84-percent biobased, certified readily biodegradable and made with soy grown in the United States. It’s also the first and only firefighting foam to attain the gold level through GreenScreen Certified for Safer Chemicals.
“My whole career has been literally what we can do to improve the performance today that they couldn’t improve yesterday,” Dave Garlie, chief technology officer at Cross Plains Solutions, said.
“We make the solutions, we give them to the professionals, and then they go through different tests, and the feedback that they provide us allows us to make changes to those formulations,” Garlie said. “Without that relationship, we would never have a soy-based firefighting foam that we’re promoting today.”
SoyFoam, which is currently derived from soy flour, is being tested at CVTC using soymeal, which is a more efficient ingredient that has the potential to expand its commercial availability.
“It was really enjoyable to see how impressed the firefighters were,” Groth said. “These professionals have been in the business for a long time, and to see how impressed they were with the performance of SoyFoam and how they want to integrate it into their fire departments was really exciting.”
With a projected 10-year shelf-life, SoyFoam is comparable in price to current foam solutions. As a farmer, Groth said he’s proud to see the soy checkoff support a product that has the potential to save lives.
“It’s just really exciting anytime you get to see a new product being used and one that we invested our money in,” he said. “I’d really like to see it widely adopted among fire departments, and I think rural departments will be excited to use it.”
