The director who resigned from her post at Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority after a major PFAS spill at Brunswick Executive Airport remains on the board in charge of redeveloping the former Loring Air Force Base.
Kristine Logan announced she would be stepping down from Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority last Thursday, nearly two months after a fire suppression system at one of Brunswick’s airport hangars failed, spilling 1,600 gallons of firefighting foam containing PFAS chemicals.
Logan faced calls to resign after local and state leaders learned that recent airport inspections revealed deficiencies in the fire suppression system, despite Logan initially reporting a clean inspection record.
In a statement issued Friday and printed in the Portland Press Herald, Logan said that she decided to “remove [herself] as a focal point” after the spill. Efforts to reach Logan for comment Monday were unsuccessful. She plans to work through this week.
Gov. Janet Mills appointed Logan to a 3-year term on the Loring Development Authority board of directors in 2022, Jonathan Judkins, interim CEO of the authority, noted on Monday. The authority oversees most of the 3,800-acre Loring Commerce Center, created after the Loring Air Force Base’s closure in 1994.
Board members can only be removed through a request from the governor’s office or the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. Loring Development Authority has not received that type of request from either office, Judkins said Monday.
Like Loring Development Authority, the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority has been overseeing the redevelopment of a former military base, Brunswick Naval Air Station, which closed in 2009. Now called Brunswick Landing, the business and industrial park has seen a surge in new housing and businesses recently.
Judkins said he has no concerns about Logan continuing to serve on the authority’s board despite what happened in Brunswick.
“She has expertise and real-world experience with [military] base redevelopment that is essential to our understanding of that process here at Loring,” Judkins said.
Loring has been working with the Air Force on its own PFAS clean-up efforts. During Loring’s Air Force years, firefighters used Aqueous Film Forming Foams, or AFFF, to put out fires and conduct training near the base’s airport. Preliminary testing shows that those “forever chemicals” have likely spread to waterways within and near Loring.
AFFF is also the chemical that spilled at Brunswick Landing in August. Judkins said that AFFF has not been used at Loring since it was an active Air Force base, so the clean-up efforts there are focused on the remaining chemicals.
