Environmental Crimes Against Water

Environmental Crimes Against Water and the People in Albuquerque NM Complaint

This is a citizens complaint against the Kirkland Air Force Base (KAFB), for “knowing endangerment” under the statutes of RCRA, CWA, SDWA and CAA; that there are violations of statutes and egregious environmental crimes committed; that both of these entities have waited seven years, until 2007, before a perfunctory mitigation was started with KAFB erroneously putting in the monitoring well that were sure to give unreliable information by positioning wells outside of the path of the migrating plume. In 2010, the data is still old and unreliable.

There is no reliable data on this problem to this date.

For 10 years and after repeated requests to the US Air Force at KAFB, NNMENV failed to follow through with enforcement procedures. They failed to file the appropriate charges against the US Air Force for these egregious environmental crimes of contaminating the drinking water of the citizens and residents of Albuquerque New Mexico, in which over 80% of the drinking comes from groundwater with several thousand people receiving water from the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Utility Water Authority (ABCUWA) distribution system. Only after seven years did NMNV file for a consent order.

Both KAFB and NMENV knowingly endangered the general public by not acting in the best interest of the people and not following the correct procedures by allowing 7 years to elapse, that they hoped that the contaminants would naturally attenuate. They put the public drinking water in eminent danger by not monitoring, testing, sampling and issuing the proper warnings to the public regarding the condition of the aquifer and possible pollutants in the water or issuing the possible health warnings, knowing that 8 M gallons of jet fuel has permanently damaged the aquifer and caused great harm to the people of the State of New Mexico. This is close to the size of the Exxon Valdez Spill and equivalent to 17 olympic-size swimming pools filled with jet fuel.

Recently water a soil samples have tested positive for EDB which put lead in gasoline. This means that the seepage has been going on since 1970's.

In 2000, it was found that jet fuel that seeped into the aquifer. Currently, it is believed that the plume has migrated under the homes of people living within a 1 mile of the base. There has been inadequate testing in this area.

The problem is impacted by the pumping of the ABCUWA drinking water system, which a cone of depression that may be drawing contaminants into these wells. The County, while only recently started drawing water from the Rio Grande, it depends on ground water wells for the over 70% of the drinking water sent to ratepayers from the Ridge Crest Wells. ABCUWA has cut production of the Ridge Crest Well field in half, down to 5100 afy. Thus, the NMENV and KAFB is shifting the economic burden of clean up on to the public and serious health effects onto the unborn, children, elderly and women that are pregnant from NMENV intending to only require that KAFB treat water only to the MCL’s, if they can, which are known to be problematic for this sector of the population.

There was no formal investigation that determined the spill as being accidental, after the fact that possibly over 8 million gallons of jet fuel is floating the aquifer this very day nor has it been investigated. The current jet fuel storage tanks are scheduled to be torn out so far 3 leaks have been found; KAFB virtually did nothing, knowingly.

There has not been a proper independent investigation of this issue outside of the US Air Force investigating itself, which is the polluter in this case. It is an ethical and moral violation that taints the perception of integrity for the KAFB or government contractors to be in charge of sampling their own contaminants. This does not evoke public trust in this situation. There should be an independent lab processing that should be taking water samples and NMED should be able to mandate KAFB to pay for this testing.

During the past 10 years the United States Air Force has dragged its feet.

Evading mitigation by only doing what it felt like doing about the clean up. Any type of mitigation that was offered was not enough to aggressively monitor and protect the general public from ground water/drinking water pollution or polluting the ground drinking water source. It was not until 2007 that the Air Force put in a water-monitoring well. This well has unreliable data and was not in the direct path of the pollution migration. This was done so it would not show liability of KAFB.

There were other jet fuel source points, which no entity has taken the proper steps to mitigate the pollution flowing from the Base to provide adequate protection the population of the Albuquerque. Even requests to KAFB from NMENV have gone unanswered.

Furthermore, the mitigation steps that have been taken, such as SVE, have air emissions that are not being tested, and are adding to the emission of GHG’s and other toxins. Nor has there been any mitigation of the Pump and Treat injection plume into the aquifer that would further exacerbate the jet fuel by mixing through turbulence, dispersing the fuel to a wider area and further impacting the baseline of the water quality.

The US Federal Prosecutor should be called in to demonstrate that the defendant(s) was aware of the leaks and spills for over 10 years, was knowingly a repetitive offender and that KAFB had been given and should have been given mandatory deadlines and sued to pay fines for their egregious crimes against the people in both civil and criminal court.

The aquifer is permanently damaged by Kirkland Air Force Base; that 25 years of mitigation will not be able to clean up this egregious crime.

The US Air Force has a behavioral M.O. of “hit and run” it is what they do best and the new performance based contract has elements of that, with Shaw Environmental (a new government contractor for the US Air Force) will have a tendency to cut corners on the plan and cut proper clean up of the area in order to cash in on incentives “to get the job done.” Furthermore, there is no independent oversight that the monitoring wells screens will be installed correctly or that Shaw will tear down old storage tanks before proper they can be investigated that that samples of soil and ground water underneath them can be tested independently. They should not be allowed to test themselves it is unethical and immoral when considering the magnitude of the crime that has been committed.

In order to assure that the people will not be further impacted by a botched investigation and egregious crimes against the right nature, to clean water and the human right to clean water. We, the citizens, grassroots groups and NGO’s undersigned, request that Environmental Protection Agency request that the US Department of Justice and Albuquerque Federal Prosecutor investigate the allegations of the crimes of KAFB that have been laid before the agency and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. Kirkland Air Force Base should not be allowed to operate as they proved to be a criminal in their intent to the people of New Mexico.