Albuquerque Journal
By John FleckJournal Staff Writer
December 07, 2000
A city groundwater expert is grappling with a puzzle involving odd levels of a naturally occurring chemical in groundwater beneath a Sandia National Laboratories radioactive waste landfill.
Activists say the levels of chloride are evidence the landfill might have leaked in the past, or could leak in the future.
Sandia officials say the unusual chloride levels simply reflect differences in the minerals in soil beneath the site.
The chloride numbers came to light in a Nov. 29 report by city groundwater expert Doug Earp.
Earp is reviewing Sandia's Mixed Waste Landfill on behalf of the joint city-county Groundwater Protection Advisory Board.
Earp, in his report and in an interview, said there is no evidence the landfill has contaminated the groundwater.
Bruce Thomson, a University of New Mexico professor and chairman of the advisory board, agreed.
"There's no contamination," said Thomson, who also has been reviewing data on the landfill.
Earp's work has nevertheless triggered new criticism of Sandia's plans for the controversial landfill.
Sandia and the Department of Energy would like to build a permanent cover over the old landfill, leaving its waste in place. Activists, fearing a leak that could contaminate groundwater, would like the waste dug up and moved to a safer place.
Earp, analyzing Sandia data from groundwater wells beneath the landfill and in the surrounding area, found unusual levels of chloride in the well directly below the landfill.
Earp said in an interview he focused on chloride because, while it occurs naturally, unusual levels can indicate that a landfill has leaked.
Chloride levels were higher beneath the landfill than in other area wells, according to Earp.
"This suggests there might be a pathway" for waste to leak from the landfill into the aquifer below, said Miles Nelson, one of the leaders of Citizen Action, a group pushing for landfill cleanup.
Sandia officials said the difference in chloride levels are the result of differences among the various wells.
The well beneath the landfill — the one with higher chloride levels — is 30 feet deeper than the other wells in the area, meaning its water is coming from a different soil layer, said Dick Fate, one of the Sandia officials responsible for the landfill project.
"It shouldn't be surprising that there are different minerals at different depths" that would change the chloride levels in the water, Fate said.
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