From the August 7, 2003 issue of the SUN
By John Foster
SUN News Editor
A plume of toxic waste flowing under Española will not be cleaned this year. The Environmental Protection Agency announced July 17 that the site is not one of 11 in nine states to receive funding.
The North Railroad Avenue Plume was caused when the former owners of the Norge Town Laundry dumped toxic chemicals into a lint trap more than 20 years ago.
The chemicals spread to the ground and then to the aquifer, ruining two city wells. The plume of toxic waste is spreading underground toward the Rio Grande.
The plume was declared a Superfund site, meaning the federal government recognized it is an environmental problem large enough to warrant special attention and funding to pay for clean up.
However, federal budget cuts mean not all Superfund sites received funding this year. Española was one of those left in the cold.
Don Williams, with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said the sites funded were those that posed the highest risk to human health and the environment.
"The sites not funded will be reconsidered next year for funding," he said.
The only other site in New Mexico to receive Superfund money has many similarities to the North Railroad Avenue Plume.
The Fruit Avenue Plume, in Albuquerque, was also created when toxic dry-cleaning chemicals were dumped into the ground and spread to an aquifer. The toxic plume now threatens city of Albuquerque water wells east of downtown.
Those wells are in the path of the plume, but the two Española wells ruined by waste were taken off line in the 1990s. Since other city of Española wells are not in danger of being contaminated by the plume, EPA officials said they believe the North Railroad Avenue Plume is not an immediate risk.
"Therefore, there is less potential for an impact to the community water supply in the near future," Williams said.
That doesn't wash with New Mexico officials.
"It sounds like they had only "x" amount of money and had to choose between 'a' and 'b'." said John Goldstein, a spokesman for the state Environment Department. "In the past, Superfund was funded to a level of every site that was needed. Funding cuts from the Bush administration are cutting Superfund to the bone."
The federal government allocated $277 million to clean up Superfund sites in 2003.
John Millett, a spokesman in Washington, D.C., for the Environmental Protection Agency, said the North Railroad Avenue Plume could be funded in the future.
Millett also said the public should not be worried about there being a health risk from the plume.
"Sometimes people will equate not making one round (of funding) with persistence of any public health risk," he said. "That is not the case. If they are on the candidate list then the public health risk has been contained."
Millett compared the situation in Española to a patient waiting in a doctor's office: the problem isn't solved, but it will be soon.
Were the entire city of Española to get a doctor's visit to check for effects from the plume, the physician would look for respiratory problems, birth defects, underweight babies, cancer and nervous-system disorders.
However, since the plume infected water at least ten years before anyone knew there was a problem, it's nearly impossible to tell how many people became sick from the toxic waste.
"The most we can say is that there is an increased risk," Robert Knowles, of ASTDR, said earlier this year. "We don't have the data to say 'yes.' But exposure may or may not have played a role (in making people sick.)"
A plan for cleaning the Plume is ready to go. It involves a series of deep ditches to catch and filter the plume through other chemicals, and it involves "flushing" the aquifer with other chemicals to clean out the toxic waste. According to the EPA website, they have spent about $2 million on the site so far, for planning and holding meetings.
Regardless, Española will have to wait at least one year to learn whether the North Railroad Avenue Plume will be cleaned up.
Williams said the EPA will take additional samples along Rio Grande over the next few months to make sure the chemicals from the plume do not reach the river.
