EPA Complaint Rupturing of Containers.final

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March 6, 2007

United States Environmental Protection AgencyMr. Paul McKechnie

RE: COMPLAINT FOR RUPTURING OF HAZARDOUS WASTE CONTAINERSAT THE SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIE’S MIXED WASTE LANDFILL

WITHOUT DETECTION SYSTEMS FOR MONITORING RELEASE AND

MOVEMENT OF CONTAMINANTS; NICKEL CONTAMINATION; AND

REGULATORY PROCEDURES

Dear Mr. McKechnie,

Citizen Action New Mexico wishes to make a complaint about recent events at the

Sandia National Laboratories’ (SNL/DOE) Mixed Waste Landfill (MWL) located on

Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The MWL has large amounts (up to 700,000 cu ft (CEARP) ) of hazardous, mixed waste

and radioactive waste placed in shallow (up to 25 ft deep) unlined pits and trenches.Many of these wastes, which include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PCBs,

ignitable wastes, heavy metals, over 200,000 gallons of reactor waste water and

transuranics were placed in 55 gallon drums and other flimsy containers such as glass bottles, plastic bottles, plastic bags and cardboard cartons. The wastes were not

accurately characterized, inventoried as to amounts, locations of burial in the discrete pits

and trenches, or for compatibility of the wastes.

#1 The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued SNL/DOE a Notice of

Disapproval for the remedy of installing a soil cover “because of the rupturing of containers and the leaking of their contents could have occurred [at the MWL] since themid-1990’s.” SNL/DOE went ahead and constructed the subgrade portion of the cover

which required the use of heavy compaction equipment to pack down 40 inches of soil

and gravel over the pits and trenches. There is no well-monitoring network or soil-gasmonitoring network in place at the MWL that is capable of detecting the release of

contaminants and movement from the crushed barrels and other containers at the MWL

into the air and water. Citizen Action is concerned about the release of contaminants

from the crushing of containers in the dump without the ability to monitor the movementof the wastes from the dump into the groundwater and the air.

#2 There is evidence of nickel contamination at the MWL found in monitoring wellMW1. Nickel contamination has been cumulatively building and has been repeatedly

measured at higher and higher levels in monitoring well MW1 since 1990. The nickel

contamination in the first water sample collected from this well in 1990 were at a level of 43 ug/L (parts per billion) and have increased to a level of 405 ug/L for a water sample

collected in 2005. The New Mexico Water Quality Standard is that nickel shall not

exceed a level of 200 ug/L in the waters of the State.



The reason that the nickel cannot be from the corrosion of the stainless steel well screen

of the monitoring well is that corrosion of the well screen will provide both chromium

and nickel to the groundwater in a mathematical proportion. In addition, the corrosion produces fine particles of corroded metals that are not in dissolved form. The presence of

fine metal particles in the water samples is identified by comparison between splits of

filtered and unfiltered water samples. However, the high levels of dissolved nickel in thefiltered water samples and very low levels of nickel particles in the unfiltered water

samples and the very low levels of chromium measured in both filtered and unfiltered

water samples are evidence that the nickel contamination is not from corrosion of thewell screen. In addition, the high level of dissolved nickel is part of a larger plume that

can easily travel in the drinking water resource. The nature and extent of the nickel

plume is not known at the present time. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

(RCRA) Facility Investigation identified “hot spots” of nickel contamination in the strata beneath the MWL and pointed out the importance to monitor for nickel contamination in

the groundwater. In the past two months, Citizen Action issued a Press Release

concerning the nickel plume. Nevertheless, SNL/DOE has made no report to the NMED

of statistically significant evidence of groundwater contamination. The compliancemonitoring program required under RCRA has not been initiated.

#3 The NMED allowed the subgrade construction to proceed at the MWL with no

notification to the public as required by the Corrective Measures Plan. The NMED

issued the November 2006 Notice of Disapproval (NOD) for the cover specifically citingthe need for more information on the planning and construction of the subgrade and the

necessity of soil gas monitoring. NMED also assured the public in November 2006 that

there were deficiencies for the soil cover remedy and that the construction would not take

place until those deficiencies were corrected. The subgrade structure is a major portionof the soil cover.

In the November 2006 Notice of Disapproval, NMED stated “… actual start time isdependent on when the CMI Plan is approved…” The Corrective Measures

Implementation Plan still has not been approved as of this date and the NOD remains in

place. Citizen Action later found out through a Public Records Act Request that NMEDsecretly, before the issuance of the NOD, allowed the subgrade cover construction to

proceed without providing notice or opportunity for comment to the public. NMED had

not given approval for a soil gas monitoring plan, and no soil gas monitoring existed

during the construction activities for the subgrade, or at the present time.

#4 The deficiencies in the well monitoring network were identified in reports by NMED

and independent reviewers in the early 1990’s soon after the wells were installed. Thedeficiencies were never corrected, and recently the only downgradient monitoring well at

the point of compliance for monitoring contamination across the water table has become

unusable because of the regular decline in the water table. The monitoring well for background water quality has also become unusable because of the decline in water

levels. The decline in water levels occurs at a regular rate because of the heavy demand

on the water resource. The need to replace the wells was understood by NMED and

SNL/DOE years ago with no action taken to install new wells. Similarly, when it was



discovered in 1991 that two of the monitoring wells were located cross-gradient of

groundwater flow beneath the MWL, and did not meet RCRA requirements, no action

was taken to replace the wells. Instead, the 2006 SNL/DOE water sampling reportdescribes the two wells as being downgradient of the MWL.

#5 Citizen Action has a filed an appeal of the Permit Modification issued by NMED. The

Permit Modification required submittal of a Corrective Measure Implementation Plan(CMIP) to provide the detailed design for the soil-cover-with-bio-intrusion-layer remedy

NMED approved in the Permit Modification. While the appeal case is proceeding before

the NM Court of Appeals, the requirements of the permit modification remain in place.Those requirements provide for construction of the approved remedy after approval of the

CMIP. The subgrade construction approved by NMED in September 2006 is an essential

part of the CMIP – engineering specifications are provided in the CMIP for subgradeconstruction that include placement and compaction of up to 40 inches on the MWL to

raise the surface of the MWL to the level of surrounding soil. NMED approved

construction of the subgrade cover prior to the issuance of the Notice of Disapproval for the CMIP in November 2006.

The matters complained of in this letter are not part of the Citizen Action's appeal of the

permit modification issued by NMED. The lawsuit addresses the issuance of the permit

modification. The lawsuit is an appeal of whether any permit even existed so that a“modification” of the permit could issue.

This EPA complaint addresses the defects associated with NMED’s partial

implementation of the CMIP before the CMIP has been approved, an approval required

by the permit modification. What is required is a full CMI Plan to be approved before

the remedy was carried out. The NMED allowed the subgrade cover portion of the CMIPto be installed without the required approval for the CMI Plan as a whole, without a soil

gas monitoring system in place and without a well monitoring network capable of detecting the release of contaminants beneath the MWL from the compaction and

rupturing of containers within the MWL.

The issue in this EPA complaint is that the cover/subgrade construction, which is part of

the CMI Plan, i.e., the design of the remedy, did not receive approval prior to the actual beginning of the construction of the cover. In fact, the NOD was issued specifically for

the cover and yet construction was allowed to proceed prior to approval of the CMI Plan.

Feel free to contact us at the telephone number below regarding these matters.

Sincerely,

David B. McCoy, Executive Director

Citizen Action New Mexico

POB 4276Albuquerque, NM 87196



505 262-1862

dave@ radfreenm.org

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

EPA Complaint Rupturing of Containers.final

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