From the May 8, 2003 issue of the SUN
By John Foster
SUN News Editor
Benjamin and Irene Lopez have lived on Espinoza Street in Española since 1968. They worked, raised four children, and watched those children move away from home.
They also got sick.
"We catch colds easier and we all have respiratory problems," Benjamin Lopez said. "I lost a kidney in 2000 and we both have high blood pressure. My arms and fingers fall asleep easily."
Lopez suspects it was city of Española tap water that caused most of his ailments, and he isn't alone. Anyone who drank city water between 1970 and 1990 may have increased their risk for contracting some insidious diseases.
Childhood leukemia, other cancers, birth defects, underweight babies, nervous-system disorders are just a few of the problems that could have been caused by city drinking water that was contaminated between 1970 and 1990 by a Railroad Avenue dry cleaning business.
And unfortunately, according to a federal public health agency, there isn't much that can be done about it.
Origins
Scientists from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said the drinking water problems came from something called the North Railroad Avenue plume.
The plume is a contamination of shallow and deep ground water that extends southeast toward the Rio Grande from a laundromat on the west side of Española.
The contamination was caused by previous owners of Norge Town Laundry dumping tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene into the ground behind their building on Railroad Avenue.
The chemicals are still used by the present owners of the laundry, but are now disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Previous owners simply dumped the chemicals into a lint trap that allowed seepage into the ground.
Both those chemicals and others dumped behind the laundry may cause illness or disease, but scientists can't say for sure. They suspect that may be the case, but there are no studies that show conclusive proof.
There are also no health statistics for the 20 years residents were exposed to tainted drinking water, so there is no way to know for certain if some diseases that could have come from the chemicals are more prevalent in the Española area.
"The most we can say is that there is an increased risk," said Robert Knowles, of the Registry. "We don't have the data to say 'yes.' But exposure may or may not have played a role."
Knowles said one of the most important points for the community to understand is that there is no current danger of exposure. The city wells that were contaminated are no longer used.
Clean Up
The Environmental Protection Agency has the plume site on its "Superfund" list. Superfund projects are considered the worst man-made environmental problems in the country that need to be cleaned up.
Williams said there are 13 active Superfund sites in New Mexico. He also said there is a plan to clean up the North Railroad Avenue Plume.
"We'd like to restore it to drinking-water quality," Williams said. "We're looking at future ground water use."
The first step is pumping solvent through the ground water in the plume area. The solvents will loosen some of the contaminants, allowing those contaminants to be flushed out, along with the solvent.
The second step is to dissolve the plume itself, using what Williams called bio-treatment trenches.
The EPA will dig trenches along roads that crisscross over the plume. The trenches will be filled with bacteria and nutrients, then covered.
As ground water flows into the trenches, the bacteria and nutrients will clean the water. As the water flows out of the trenches, it will have salt and other minerals to carry the bacteria and chemicals.
The third step is to clean the ground under Norge Town laundry. Using an elaborate vacuum system, the chemicals that remain in the ground will be drawn out and disposed of.
Williams said the last step is vital to the future potability of the ground water near Railroad Avenue.
Since the water table there is shallow, a heavy rain could raise the water level up to the point where hazardous chemicals are still trapped in the ground, causing further contamination.
The federal government will pay for the clean-up but the state will oversee the actual work. However, while there is a plan in place to clean up the plume, paying for the plan will not be easy.
All Superfund sites in the country are allocated about $1.2 billion dollars a year. That money is split between different regions.
Administrators in those regions then decide which projects will be funded for the coming year and which will have to wait for future federal funding.
Williams said Española won't know until later this year if the North Railroad Avenue Plume site clean-up will be funded so clean-up can begin, although a date for beginning has not been set.
Responsibility
Daniel Valerio is a coordinator with El Rio Arriba Environmental Health Association. The group is trying to make people aware that their illnesses of the last 10, 20, even 30 years might not be normal.
"We'd like to find out more," he said. "We want to canvas the neighborhoods. But it's hard. People don't want to talk about family, about something bad that happened."
Women who lost pregnancies and parents who lost a child to cancer may be less likely to open up about their history, he said. But that information must be gathered to determine if the plume did have a negative effect in the community.
And although some residents may be reticent to reveal their medical history, there is one question no one is afraid to ask. It's a question Benjamin and Irene Lopez, and other residents have been asking since the plume was first discovered in 1989.
Who is responsible?
That question is difficult to answer. Williams said the old owners of the laundry — the people who dumped the chemicals — are dead.
No case has ever been won against the companies that produce the chemicals, he said. And, at the time the city water was contaminated, there wasn't a test to see if the water was safe or if those chemicals were present.
"Nobody wants to claim responsibility," Benjamin Lopez said. "But somebody has to."
