From the December 14, 2006 issue of the SUN
Plan to contain plume did not work
By Sean McAlindin
SUN Staff Writer
The state Environmental Department plans to spend the next year experimenting with an alternative solution after the original plan to clean up the Superfund site in Española proved ineffective.
A 58-acre underground column of toxic chemicals stretches from behind the Norge Town Laudromat on North Railroad Avenue south toward the Rio Grande. Since the late 1980s, the column has contaminated at least 280 million gallons of water, forced the closure of two city wells and threatened to spread further.
Steve Jetter, the Department project manager for the Española site since August 2005, toured the site Dec. 8.
"This is a critical junction," he said.
The Department's original plan was to consolidate the chemicals at the source using a surfactant, or soap. The chemicals would then be pumped out of the ground and taken off-site for cleaning.
However, geological forces have removed this idea from consideration.
"We couldn't proceed with (the surfactant) because of clay and tighter sand formations," Jetter said.
A clay formation about 20 feet below the surface of the laundromat was found to slope at a sharp downward angle.
"We didn't know if we would be able to maintain capture on the surfactant and the product it released," Jetter said.
The plan has since evolved into the use of bioamendments: natural organisms that have been proven to break down tetrachloroethene, the main chemical threatening the city’s water supply.
Most of the ground water between Hunter Avenue, the Rio Grande, Santa Clara Bridge, and the Los Alamos Highway is over federal Environmental Protection Agency standards for tetrachloroethene and its derivative trichloroethene.
The next step is a year-long pilot test to determine the most effective bioamendment.
At the source, the Department will inject four different amendments and track their progress at breaking down the chemicals. The amendments are grain alcohol, dairy whey, vegetable oil and vegetable oil with hydrogen.
The pilot test will begin in January.
Once the most effective amendment is determined, the Department will begin using that amendment throughout the 90 injection and extraction wells they installed into the plume.
The primary defense against the ever-flowing plume will be a line of wells along Santa Clara Bridge known as the biocurtain.
Although some contamination is found in the bosque south of the bridge, it is significantly less than the hot spot to the north, Jetter said.
"It takes about 90 days for the bugs to get happy," Jetter said. "Another 90 days to see results. How long it takes to see what's good and what's not, we'll see."
Reducing the chemicals enough to meet federal water standards is expected to take between 20 and 30 years.
"Eventually it will break down, but it needs some help," Jetter said.
Another area of contamination has spread into a deep zone beneath the Plaza. No one knows how the chemical spread in that direction, Jetter said.
It is possible the chemicals were pumped there through city water lines, but it remains a mystery how they got so deep, as far as 260 feet.
The main plume is mostly about 20-30 feet below the surface, Jetter said.
According to outlying monitoring wells, the contamination has not reached the Rio Grande, Jetter said.
So far, the federal government has allocated $3.6 million to this Superfund site, though that number is bound to grow.
Jetter is currently managing other contaminated dry cleaning sites in Roswell and Grants.
For 20 years, past owners of the Norge Town Laundry dumped dry cleaning chemicals onto the ground behind their building on North Railroad Avenue. Over time the chemicals spread south for about a mile in a triangular-shaped plume.
Contact with these chemicals is known to lead to cancer, birth defects, and nervous and muscular system disorders.
The contamination was discovered in 1989 and affected wells were shut down.
In 1999, the site qualified for federal "Superfund" money, grants reserved for the nation's worst toxic spills.
Due to a shortage of these funds, the study process was delayed. It wasn't until 2005 that construction for the clean-up actually began.
