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New Mexico Environment Department's 2015 Strategic Plan for the Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) Bulk Fuels Facility and Status Update
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The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) released their "2015 Strategic Plan" for the Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) Bulk Fuels Facility Spill (BFF Spill) on Dec. 19, 2014 for stakeholder and public comments. The Strategic Plan puts forth five critical goals for the corrective action activities occurring in 2015. They include:
1. Protect drinking water wells;
2. Collapse the dissolved-phase ethylene dibromide (EDB) plume and bring it back towards KAFB boundary;
3. Remediate fuel floating on top / near the water table and submerged in ground water;
4. Vacuum fuel vapor from the soil and prevent further migration to groundwater, and;
5. Maintain a high level of project transparency that exceeds the statutory requirements.
Water Authority Staff have reviewed the document and will provide comments to NMED by the January 30th deadline. The Strategic Plan is a proactive management tool for NMED to use in working with KAFB, the Water Authority and the public towards cleaning up the jet fuel spill in the aquifer and soil below the site.
In addition, on January 15, 2015 NMED issued the U.S. Air Force (USAF) a notice of violation for not meeting the December 31, 2014 deadline to implement the EDB plume interim measure agreed to and presented to the Water Authority Board in August of 2013. The notice specified that KAFB was subject to an initial and progressive fine schedule if it continued to be out of compliance, and requires the USAF to submit a formal work plan to collapse the EDB plume by March 2, 2015. USAF has notified NMED and Water Authority staff that the course of action to collapse the EDB plume is currently on schedule.
USAF has also started the drilling of additional monitoring wells around the estimated edge of the EDB plume, which will better define the nature and extent of the contamination an...
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