I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
An aerial view of the mixed waste landfill circa 1987.
A nuclear waste watchdog group says the state hasn’t done enough to make sure radioactive and toxic waste isn’t leaking from Sandia National Labs’ mixed waste landfill. Rebuffed by regional U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, Citizen Action New Mexico now wants agency brass in Washington, D.C. and New Mexico Attorney General Gary King‘s office to review the state Environment Department’s regulation of the site.
The mixed waste site is an landfill composed of unlined pits and trenches on the southern edge of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. It contains radioactive waste, solvents and other chemicals that were buried between 1959 and 1988.
Because the pit is not lined, toxic waste from the site could leak and contaminate Albuquerque’s groundwater, Citizen Action director David McCoy told The Independent. The group wants that waste removed from the site.
Groundwater could be in danger, group says
McCoy said problems with Sandia’s groundwater monitoring efforts mean nobody can be sure pollution is not leaking from the site.
“The monitoring wells fail by design,” he said.
But the state Environment Department, tasked with oversight of pollution at the national labs, does not agree. The Department has permitted Sandia to leave the waste in place and to cover it with dirt.
A November 2006 Environment Department staff study concluded the lab’s groundwater monitoring efforts at the site would detect any migration of pollution from the site.
And EPA officials declared the Environment Department’s oversight of the mixed waste site “sound” in 2007.
But in December 2007, citing evidence groundwater flows in a different direction than reported in the Environment Department study, McCoy enlisted Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s help in an effort to have the department’s report reviewed by the EPA’s National Risk Management Research Lab in Ada, Okla.
Officials at EPA Region 6 in Dallas, Texas, who oversee the state Environment Department, denied that request.
EPA intentionally hid information, inspector general found
Following up on a complaint from Citizen Action NM, the EPA Inspector General concluded this April that EPA Region 6 officials had intentionally hidden information about the waste site from the public.
EPA Region 6 conducted its 2007 and 2008 review of the site by phone and in-person “specifically to withhold information from the public” and avoid creating public records that might be obtained by Citizen Action, the report states. EPA Region 6 officials also classified their review of the Environment Department oversight of the landfill as “confidential” to prevent its public disclosure, the report states — even though the report contained no classified information.
The inspector general’s report released in April stopped short of calling for a new review of the site’s pollution monitoring.
Since 2007, Sandia has installed four new monitoring wells around the landfill, but McCoy believes they were drilled to the wrong depth to detect water pollution.
“They were improperly installed well below the water table,” McCoy said.
In light of the inspector general’s report, Bingaman and Citizen Action in May again asked the EPA to review the Environment Department water monitoring study.
New wells show waste isn’t leaking, EPA says
In a letter dated June 10, EPA Region 6 again denied Bingaman’s request, arguing that the new monitoring wells show no evidence that groundwater pollution is spreading from the landfill.
“Our position on Mr. McCoy’s request remains the same,” EPA Region 6 administrator Al Armendariz wrote in the letter to Bingaman. “The monitoring wells continue to show no indication of groundwater contamination from the landfill. … We believe the current configuration of the wells is adequate and protective of human health and the environment.”
Armendariz’s letter reiterated that the Environment Department’s “overall actions and decisions were technically sound.”
Now that EPA Region 6 has twice refused to review groundwater monitoring at the site, McCoy has asked EPA headquarters and the state AG’s office to step in.
He hopes the AG will refer the Environment Department study directly to the EPA lab for review, bypassing EPA Region 6.
“We’ve been pretty frustrated about getting to the truth of the situation,” McCoy said. “We asked for the AG to send the report … to be reviewed by the EPA Kerr Research Laboratory in Ada, Oklahoma. The report was used to dismiss public comments regarding the monitoring wells at the Sandia mixed waste dump (but) never received peer review. The Kerr Lab is capable to provide the required peer review.”
The group has not yet received a final decision from either EPA headquarters or the AG’s office about whether or not they will become involved.
