[CPEO-MEF] FUEL: "Kirtland Air Force Base [NM] Jet Fuel Spill Threatens Albuquerque Water Supply"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Kirtland Air Force Base Jet Fuel Spill Threatens Albuquerque Water  
Supply

By JERI CLAUSING
Associated Press
July 20, 2012

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Environmentalists call it the largest threat  
to a city's drinking water supply in history, as much as 24 million  
gallons of jet fuel - or twice the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill  
- seeping into an underground aquifer and steadily toward this  
drought-stricken city's largest and most pristine water wells.

But more than 12 years after the toxin-laden plume from a 40-year  
underground pipe leak was discovered at Kirtland Air Force Base,  
estimates of its size and its threat to the water supply of New  
Mexico's largest city keep growing, less than half a million gallons  
have been pumped out of the ground, the Air Force is two years away  
from finalizing a cleanup plan and local officials are still arguing  
about whether the spill is something they need to get involved with.

"We're pretty soon going to be swimming in this stuff," Albuquerque  
Bernalillo County Water Utility Board member Rey Garduno said at a  
recent hearing held shortly after the New Mexico Department of  
Environment acknowledged the size of the spill could be as much as 24  
million gallons, or three times previous estimates.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/kirtland-air-force-base-fuel- 
spill_n_1688603.html?utm_hp_ref=green

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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