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Water Report - Kirtland Air Force Base Cleanup Update
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The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) released their "2018 Strategic Plan" for the Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) Bulk Fuels Facility (BFF) Leak on March 6, 2018, incorporating four strategies to protect the Water Authority's drinking water supply in the area of the contamination plume. The strategies include implementing a robust monitoring and wellhead protection program, collapsing the dissolved phase plume, and meet or exceed all public involvement requirements. In a shift from previous years, the NMED has revised Strategy 2 is now specific to monitoring natural attenuation of fuel contamination; this strategy was previously focused on characterization of light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) at the site.
The Air Force has two work plans approved with conditions by the NMED that will collect data to address LNAPL at the site and take steps to address the reduction in the number and location of groundwater monitoring wells screened at the water table. The Air Force brought online a fourth groundwater extraction well in February 2018 and added pre-treatment infrastructure at the groundwater treatment system. The pre-treatment addresses sediment and bacterial biofilm that may enter the system. The Air Force has treated over 350 million gallons of water contaminated by ethylene dibromide (EDB) since the extraction system began operation in June 2015. All four groundwater extraction wells are currently operation and treated effluent is either used for irrigation at the KAFB golf course or is injected at former water supply well KAFB-7.
NMED, the Air Force, and other stakeholders and their contractors meet periodically as technical working groups. The technical work groups are focused on the discussion of technical details regarding plume capture analysis and groundwater modeling as well as expanded investigation activities to fill data gaps in the source area and groundwater plume. The Resourc...
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