EDITORIAL: Another Air Force water mess, another slow cleanup in NM

Jun. 7—It took years for the Air Force and Department of Defense to take responsibility for the decades-old leak in an aviation fuel pipeline at Kirtland Air Force Base. Signs of the leak were first discovered in 1992, but KAFB didn't attempt to track the source until 1999, and only after the New Mexico Environment Department under then-Gov. Susana Martinez demanded an investigation.

And in the ensuing years pressure from the state's congressional delegation, including now-retired Sen. Tom Udall, Sen. Martin Heinrich and then-Rep. now-Gov. Michele Lujan Grisham, has kept the cleanup on track.

The Air Force has since spent $125 million and treated 1.16 billion gallons of groundwater for contaminants. Last summer state Environment Department officials said the end of the massive cleanup may be in sight. Little wonder another Air Force cleanup in the state is moving at a glacial pace — even though the source of contamination isn't in dispute.

Toxic "forever chemicals" from firefighting foam used in training exercises at Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis leaked off-base into the groundwater beneath a nearby dairy farm. Base officials asked Art Schapp, owner of Highland Dairy, to test his water in 2018; so began his long nightmare.

The perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, can cause certain types of cancers, high cholesterol and low birth weights and can accumulate in the bloodstream. They were common in non-stick and waterproofing products.

Soon after the Air Force notified Schaap of the contamination, state and federal agencies said the dairy's cow milk and meat had to be taken off the market because PFAS levels in the animals exceeded health advisories. After spending millions of dollars feeding animals that eventually died, Schapp had to euthanize what remained of his herd: more than 3,600 cows. State estimates put the farm's revenue losses and increased expenses at more than $5.9 million.

New Mexico is suing the Department of Defense over the pollution, but litigation has stalled with other PFAs suits.

The Environment Department says the contamination at Cannon and Holloman Air Force bases poses an "imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment." Environment Secretary Jim Kenney says the state and farmers navigate the cleanup, "from the science and technical modeling of the PFAS plume moving through Clovis, to evaluating how to remediate it, to testing people's water, public and private water supplies, to educating the community around PFAS exposures."

The Department of Defense "caused the contamination, the pollution, the poisoning of this herd," Kenney says. "They have legal responsibility, if not legal certainly ethical, to assist or pay for (Schaap's) expenses."

Yet the Air Force maintains that current federal regulations restrict DoD from addressing anything other than human water consumption concerns. It's moving forward with a $16.6 million project to test treatment of the contamination plume. But the Air Force could not assist Schaap with the $200K cost of installing a filter on the livestock water supply. Nor has it chipped in for dead cow disposal. (NMED allocated $850,000 from an emergency fund. U.S. Department of Agriculture helped under a program that offers monthly payments for producers who have removed milk from the market because of chemical contamination.)

Schaap commends state agencies and U.S. lawmakers for helping his business through a yearslong crisis but says dealing with the military is "like talking to a brick wall."

This is bureaucracy at its worst. DoD has known for decades firefighting foams with PFAS were dangerous. And we've long expressed gratitude for the economic impact the state's military installations have — Cannon alone employs hundreds of civilians, thousands of military personnel and has an annual impact in the neighborhood of $680 million.

But feel-good economic data is quickly set aside when the federal government doesn't live up to a good-neighbor standard. DoD must dispel the label Newsweek gave it in 2014 as "one of the world's biggest polluters." It can start by helping compensate Schaap and others for losses incurred by contamination from its PFAS-laden firefighting foam.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.