N.M. County Approves Fracking Ban

By: Nathan Lamb

Citing a desire to protect local water supplies, Mora, New Mexico, has become the first county in the United States to ban fracking, according to this story from the L.A. Times.

Energy companies use "fracking"—hydraulic fracturing—to extract hard-to-reach oil and gas deposits from the ground. The process involves using a pressurized cocktail of water, sand and chemicals to fracture underground rock. Federal law doesn't require companies to disclose what chemicals are used; they are considered trade secrets. This has spurred water quality concerns in communities across the country.

While fracking has proved lucrative to landowners who lease mining rights, a number of communities are looking to ban or slow the spread of fracking wells. Pittsburgh was the first, in 2010, and more than a dozen east coast cities have followed suit.

The Mora ordinance that bans fracking cites the county's authority to regulate commercial activity.

Fracking is not regulated in California, where several cities are considering bans or moratoriums.

Culver City, which includes part of the 1,000-acre Inglewood Oil Field, is considering a proposed six-year moratorium, while the long-term air and water impacts of fracking are studied.

The California Department of Conservation is also finalizing statewide regulations for fracking.

The Environmental Protection Agency's study of the impacts of fracking on drinking water sources is slated for release in 2014.

Jet Fuel and Perchlorate Spoil Groundwater in Two Western Localities

By: Duane Craig

More news about the contamination being left behind by the country’s military-industrial complex comes from two locations: Albuquerque, N.M., and Barstow, Calif., according to reports here and here.

New Mexico’s environmental officials characterized Kirtland AFB’s efforts at determining the extent of groundwater contamination below Albuquerque’s southeast quadrant as inadequate, and the state’s environment department is calling for more monitoring wells to see just how much risk is posed to the city’s drinking water. Underground aircraft fuel lines had leaked for decades when the leaks were discovered in 1999, and an estimated 8 million gallons contributed to a plume of contamination that may now threaten city wells. The Air Force didn’t mention the problem until 2007, according to the report cited above in the Air Force Times.

A former pyrotechnic company in Barstow illegally dumped perchlorate that contributed to a 1.25-mile plume of contamination in the area’s groundwater, forcing the closure of one of the local water supplier’s wells. Recent drilling and testing shows perchlorate in concentrations up to 13,000 parts per billion. California says that 6 parts per billion is the maximum amount of the chemical allowed in drinking water. Cleanup activities are expected to begin soon.

Survivors on a Radioactive Wasteland

By: Duane Craig

There is a long story of radioactive contamination across New Mexico, especially in the northwestern portion of the state, where recent estimates of cleaning up just one site will require the removal of 1.4 million tons of soil, according to an article at E&E Publishing, LLC.

Much of this story centers around the U.S. Department of Energy and the United States’ race with the Soviet Union to see who could create more nuclear weapons. The five-year cleanup plans in this part of the country come and go like the winds, while more than 500 polluted mine sites wait to be cleaned up. Meanwhile, the people live with contaminated water and land, and there are even radioactive homes that were built with waste from uranium mining.

The Environmental Protection Agency says miners took about four million tons of uranium from Navajo lands between 1944 and 1986, and besides fueling the manufacture of nuclear bombs, it was also pressed into service for nuclear power plants. Uranium mining activity left an indelible mark on the land and even in the water. In a part of the country where 30 percent of residents use untreated water, and water quality is often unknown or too dangerous to drink, the long-term health implications become even more staggering.

There is much more to the detailed story here.

U.S. EPA Settlements Require Investigation of Uranium Contamination On Southwestern Tribal Lands

September 13, 2010 - This week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency entered into two enforcement actions, both of which will contribute towards cleaning up uranium contamination at the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation.

In one settlement, Rio Algom Mining LLC, a subsidiary of Canadian corporation BHP Billiton, has agreed to control releases of radium (a decay product of uranium) from the Quivira Mine Site, near Gallup, N.M. In addition, the company is to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the levels of contamination at the site. The total cost for this work is estimated to be approximately $1 million.

Under the terms of a separate settlement, the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), will begin a comprehensive investigation of the levels of uranium and other contaminants in the waste, soils and groundwater at the Tuba City Dump Site in Arizona. They will also evaluate the feasibility of a range of cleanup actions.

"Uranium mining has left a toxic legacy, and we are working as partners with the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe and other federal agencies to clean up contaminated homes, mines and water supplies," said Jared Blumenfeld, Regional Administrator for EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region. "These actions are just one part of a coordinated plan that has already resulted in the replacement of 14 homes, the assessment of more than 200 mines, and funding for water systems that will serve over 3,000 people with clean water."

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Environment Groups Cite Lansing, NY Power Plant For Coal Ash Pollution

September 9, 2010 - Near one power plant in New Mexico, sheep and cattle ranchers have reported losing hundreds of livestock who drank polluted groundwater. In a Montana town, people have been sickened by drinking water contaminated with high levels of sulfate and boron, the same metals discharged into groundwater by a nearby plant.

And in McAdoo, Pa., federal health officials have confirmed a rare bone marrow cancer cluster in a town near several plants and a waste dump, though federal officials haven't either confirmed or denied a link between the cancers and the plants.

These aren't incidents taking place close to natural gas drilling sites using new hydraulic fracturing techniques, but rather are near decades-old and still functioning coal-fired power plants, which provide roughly half of America's electricity.

One Tompkins County coal-based power plant, AES Cayuga in Lansing, was among 39 across the country cited by three national environmental groups in a new report on groundwater pollution caused by coal ash.

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Pollution an enduring legacy at old ICBM sites

October 10, 2009 - As U.S. Air Force officials marked the 50th anniversary of the deployment of nuclear missiles to sites in the rural United States this past week, residents in some of these communities are still grappling with another legacy — groundwater pollution from chemicals used to clean and maintain the weapons.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is identifying and cleaning up dozens of former nuclear missile sites in nine states.

he ICBM sites include 14 in Kansas, 10 in Nebraska, seven in Wyoming, seven in Colorado and two in Oklahoma. California, New Mexico, New York and Texas have one contaminated ICBM site each.

TCE may have polluted many more missile sites than the corps is aware.

More . . .

Contaminated ground water near Navajo boundary in New Mexico

May 1, 2009 - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6, in Dallas will discuss ground water cleanup efforts at the former United Nuclear Corp. mill site May 5 at a community meeting in Pinedale.

In short, cleanup efforts are no longer working.

Contamination from the UNC site — which is in Pinedale Chapter right in the middle of Indian Country — is nearing the Navajo Nation boundary. And though the cleanup remedy at the Superfund site is no longer effective, because no one is drinking the contaminated water, the remedy is still considered protective of human health and the environment.

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Roswell New Mexicoresidents protest hazardous waste site

November 20, 2008 - Roswell residents are protesting the idea of putting a hazardous waste dump near their southeastern New Mexico city.

Complaints surfaced at a hearing in Roswell (Tuesday) over the Bush administration's proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program, or GNEP.

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EPA studies old solvent spill in New Mexico

October 6, 2008 - According to EPA officials, between the early 1960s and mid 70s, cleaning solvents were spilled onto the ground at Holiday Cleaners, causing the ground to be contaminated with water concentrations to be higher than EPA standards.

“The presence of chlorinated solvents in ground water as the GCSP site is a result of releases from dry cleaning operations,” the EPA reported stated.

The contamination was discovered in 1993 by the New Mexico Environmental Department and the agency immediately contacted the EPA and the investigation began. In 2004 the site was listed on the National Priorities Listing. In 2006 a Record of Decision was signed by the EPA making it a Superfund site.

The primary contaminant of concern is PCE, which has been found at levels up to 51,000 parts per billion in the ground water. The federal drinking water standard allowable under the Safe Drinking Water Act is 5 ppb.

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No one, including government agencies or uranium mining companies, ever told the families about the toxic and radioactive conditions in the area

May 21, 2007 - CHURCH ROCK — Twenty-seven years ago, the dam in Church Rock burst, spilling more than 1,100 tons of radioactive mill waste and 90 million gallons of contaminated liquid into the ground.

It was the worst uranium accident in U.S. history.

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