Water board notes concern over KAFB leak cleanup

Members say their input is not being considered in formulating a strategy

Members of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority governing board expressed concerns in a meeting Wednesday that the New Mexico Environment Department and U.S. Air Force are adopting a more passive strategy when it comes to cleaning up the jet fuel leak that spread from Kirtland Air Force Base for decades.

Those concerns were largely spurred by the NMED’s 2018 Strategic Plan for dealing with the fuel plume, which rests in the same aquifer Albuquerque gets its drinking water from. A draft of the plan was released earlier this month.

“Clearly, there’s a change in the focus on natural attenuation,” said Bernalillo County Commissioner Maggie Hart Stebbins, sitting on the board as an alternate for Commissioner Steven Michael Quezada.

Stebbins cited a difference in language used in previous years’ plans.

NMED’s Chief Scientist Dennis McQuillen attempted to clarify the plan’s meaning.

“Neither the Air Force nor the Environment Department are proposing natural attenuation as a final corrective measure,” McQuillen said.

Rather, by monitoring the natural degradation of the fuel constituents, largely due to naturally occurring bacteria, McQuillen said the data gleaned from those observations will aid in identifying the measures ultimately taken to remediate the plume.

McQuillen also stated that the strategic plan is not a regulatory document, but is intended to inform the public about the upcoming year’s activities on the cleanup project.

Rick Shean, the water utility authority’s water rights program manager, expressed similar concerns over the plan and several other issues in a memo sent to NMED on Tuesday.

He also wrote that the author-

THE WATER AUTHORITY COMMENTS AND STAFF HAVE BEEN SIDELINED IN THE STAKEHOLDER AND TECHNICAL WORKING GROUP PROCESS. RICK SHEAN WATER UTILITY AUTHORITY

ity’s input is not being considered in the process.

“The Water Authority comments and staff have been sidelined in the stakeholder and technical working group process, which represents a breakdown of the partnership success that has been touted for the site since 2015,” Shean wrote.

Other concerns included inadequacies in an EPA-mandated report submitted by the Air Force to NMED last year and the incomplete characterization of the plume’s light, non-aqueous phase liquid located between the surface of the groundwater and the soil.

McQuillen said he had received the memo only the night before and hadn’t yet studied all of its 13 concerns.

“I think it (the memo) reflects some misunderstandings and we want to meet with the water authority and discuss this,” he said.