March 6, 2007 United States Environmental Protection Agency Mr.

Paul McKechnie RE: COMPLAINT FOR RUPTURING OF HAZARDOUS WASTE CONTAINERS AT THE SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES 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 the mid-1990s. 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-gas monitoring 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 movement of the wastes from the dump into the groundwater and the air. #2 There is evidence of nickel contamination at the MWL found in monitoring well MW1. 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 the filtered 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 the well 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 compliance monitoring 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 citing the 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 portion of the soil cover. In the November 2006 Notice of Disapproval, NMED stated actual start time is dependent 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 NMED secretly, 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 1990s soon after the wells were installed. The deficiencies 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 report describes 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 subgrade construction 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 NMEDs 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 CMIP to 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 4276 Albuquerque, NM 87196

505 262-1862 dave@radfreenm.org