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MassDEP emergency response reports foam take-back totals, MOSPR grants and incident responses
Summary
Emergency Response Coordinator Kathy Kiley reported MassDEP has collected more than $400,000 and roughly 47,000 gallons of firefighting foam from about 159 departments (74 in EJ communities), continues ESF-10 support to FEMA and MEMA, and recapped recent spill responses and MOSPR grants (15 grants totaling over $690,000).
Kathy Kiley, Emergency Planning and Response Coordinator in MassDEP’s Boston office, reviewed emergency response activities, the marine oil spill preparedness (MOSPR) program, and related outreach and grants.
Kiley said the department’s triple-F foam take-back program — started to address legacy foams and expanded to include modern foams — has collected more than $400,000 and about 47,000 gallons of foam from roughly 159 fire departments and facilities, and that 74 of those participants are in environmental-justice communities. "If any of your clients or know of a municipality that has Foam or has questions about Foam, they may have to please contact me," she said.
Kiley also described MassDEP’s role supporting FEMA for hurricanes and large events, noting ESF-10 (hazardous materials and environmental protection) deployments and assistance including daily air-quality updates for MEMA during wildfire smoke events. She said staff have been deployed via EMAC (the Emergency Management Assistance Compact), citing a recent six-week deployment to Hawaii in support of the 2023 wildfires.
On incident statistics, Kiley provided a snapshot through Nov. 12 of FY25: 366 releases and 430 complaints; recent years saw roughly 1,000 releases and complaints annually with the majority (about 81–83 percent) involving oil. She walked through several response examples — a marine diesel fuel overfill requiring Coast Guard coordination, a suspected clandestine drug lab with many hazardous-material containers, a sulfuric-acid truck release that closed a busy on-ramp, and a nitric-acid drum rupture in western Massachusetts — to illustrate the range of ER activity.
Kiley also highlighted MOSPR program accomplishments: geographic response strategy (GRS) planning and training, about 16 years of program activity, and a recent round of MOSPR grants (15 grants totaling more than $690,000) to strengthen spill prevention and response measures. She encouraged review of the MOSPR website for equipment, climate resiliency work and advisory committee meeting details.
