Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
CLOVIS — The New Mexico Environment Department has scheduled a public meeting this month in Clovis concerning the local water contamination linked last year to firefighting exercises at Cannon Air Force Base.
Hosted in conjunction with the state’s Attorney General office and Departments of Health and Agriculture, the meeting will also present more information on recent testing conducted by NMED. Results from tests last month on public water systems on and immediately outside the base were posted online Wednesday, indicating “that PFAS were not detectable in most of the drinking water systems that were tested and there were no exceedences of federal health advisory levels,” according to an NMED news release.
Contamination to private wells remains a different story. Following additional questions, NMED on Friday posted more comprehensive data compiled from state and military tests that showed PFAS contamination exceeding the EPA’s Lifetime Health Advisory at three private wells in Clovis.
NMED’s public information officer said the recently released samplings “represent our best efforts to keep the public informed of any potential public health issues” and that the “testing was designed to determine the risk to public health on and around the base.”
Maddy Hayden wrote in an email to The News that NMED is working with individuals whose private or dairy wells were contaminated and is still trying to determine the magnitude of the issue. State officials have sampled private wells “to reduce any risk to people drinking water from private wells and to investigate the extent to which PFAS exposures may exist in groundwater.”
Some PFAS concentrations below the EPA LHA were found in the drinking water system at Turquoise Estates, but NMED said residents there who wish to discuss the results can contact NMDoH at 505-827-0006.
“The extent of the contamination plume has not been completely delineated at this point, which is why we are seeking through our litigation to force the Air Force to determine this,” Hayden wrote. “A number of private water supply wells located off the base are contaminated with PFAS at concentrations up to 200 times in excess of EPA’s LHA.”
The next public meeting on the matter is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. April 29 in the Jay Gurley Town Hall Room at Clovis Community College, 417 Schepps Boulevard.
Data on testing by NMED, NMDoH, USAF and private owners is compiled online at: https://www.env.nm.gov/pfas/data/
Data on recent testing by NMED is available at https://www.env.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Cannon-data.pdf