News Release
News Release
For More Information, Contact:
Patti Watson — 1-800-687-3417/505-269-9691 cell
Rick Carpenter — 505-955-4206; 660-5696 cell
BUCKMAN DIRECT DIVERSION PROJECT RESPONDS TO CONCERNS OF RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINANTS ISSUES
Rio Grande water that will be treated and provided to residents for drinking will meet all drinking water standards
For Immediate Release—August 23, 2007
SANTA FE
The Buckman Direct Diversion (BDD) project team today assured the public that water treated through the BDD for use as drinking water by City of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County customers will meet all applicable drinking water standards and will be safe to drink.
Rick Carpenter, BDD project manager and senior water resources coordinator of the Water Division, Public Utilities Department, City of Santa Fe, said all drinking water systems must protect the quality of their water sources from threats of contamination. “In the Santa Fe region, contaminants from LANL pose an unusual challenge,” he said.
Carpenter discussed three areas of concern: 1) buried contaminants, such
as plutonium, in river sediments deposited in the 1940s-1960s in an area
next to the site of the BDD river diversion facilities; 2) contaminants in
the Pajarito Plateau that might be stirred up and transported to and down
the Rio Grande during storms or high snowmelt; and 3) contaminants that have
reached the regional aquifer under LANL, which is the current source of drinking
water pumped by the Buckman wells.
The buried contaminants in sediments located near the BDD site were reported
in May 2007 by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED). Carpenter
said the geographic area where the contaminants were found was a side channel
to the Rio Grande which was completely filled in during floods in the 1950s and
1960s. “In its report, the NMED concluded these radioactive contaminants
pose no immediate health threats. For someone to be at risk, they would
have to actually live on the site for a long period of time, and even then their
risk would be minimal. Our permit with the U.S. Forest Service will require
us to avoid disturbing this area. Construction and operation of the BDD diversion
facilities, raw water pump station, and pipelines will be in areas where sediment
is not contaminated,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter said there are now contaminants in sediments of the Pajarito Plateau that are connected to LANL watersheds and waste discharges. During normal conditions, these sediments stay in the canyons. However, when a lot of water “scours” canyon stream channels and banks during storms or snowmelt, the sediments can be stirred up and transported downstream.
“We’ve been aware of this potential for a number of years, and designed the BDD to address this issue. The water treatment process selected for the project is the best available technology for removal of contaminants such as plutonium, which binds tightly to sediment particles removed during treatment,” Carpenter explained.
In addition to standard treatment processes, the BDD will use Membrane Filtration (MF), which removes very small suspended solids and biological elements from the water by filtering them through extremely small pores (invisible to the naked eye) in the walls of hollow fiber membranes. This system will also help remove contaminants, such as plutonium, attached to sediment in the water.
The BDD has also been designed to stop diverting river water when the Rio Grande contains high amounts of suspended solids, such as those that plutonium binds to, and not resume diversion until the temporary “spike” in suspended solids has flowed downstream.
“We are going a step further, and will join NMED Secretary Ron Curry in calling on LANL to implement an early warning system that would let BDD staff know when they need to temporarily stop diverting river water,” Carpenter said.
A single test result that found extremely low levels of plutonium in the Buckman well field, which currently supplies drinking water to area residents, may be a “false positive,” Carpenter said. The City of Santa Fe has been actively involved in monitoring the well field wells since 2001. Carpenter said LANL has data which show the reading may be due to problems at the laboratory that was analyzing the samples or to the fact that available technology can not accurately or reliably measure such small levels of plutonium. He said LANL has reported radionuclide concentrations near detection limits in the past, which has drawn criticism from some members of the scientific community. Specifically, a copy of a 2007 National Research Council report, “Plans and Practices for Groundwater Protection at the Los Alamos National Laboratory,” suggests LANL should use more care when reporting analytical results at or below the lower limits of measurement technology.
Carpenter added bringing the BDD project on-line will reduce the area’s reliance on groundwater from the underground wells, giving the wells time to rest and water experts time to address any potential groundwater contamination problems. “By diversifying our drinking water sources, we give ourselves more flexibility. If we have a problem with one drinking water source, we can go to another source,” he explained.
Carpenter wants to work with NMED and LANL on these issues, concluding, “We are concerned about these issues and need a better understanding of the potential LANL impacts to water quality. We will work with everyone involved and we call on Los Alamos National Laboratory to be ‘totally and publicly transparent’ when developing measures to address these issues.”