Troubled Water

Beneath the adobe-lined lots, pastures and farmlands of La Cienega and La Cieneguilla, southwest of Santa Fe, a toxic undercurrent threatens the health of a rural farming community.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a persistent chemical family that can cause cancer with prolonged exposure, lurks in the depths of some private wells in the predominantly Hispanic community.

“I’ll keep saying this until I’m blue in the face,” Robert Romero, chairman of the La Cienega Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association, tells SFR. “We have less and less water and more and more contamination.”

While area residents are drinking bottled water and ordering tests on their own wells, they’re also pleading for answers about what follows. This week, Santa Fe County plans a “town hall” meeting on the topic.

PFAS has likely been in the area for years, but contamination came to light last year.

The National Guard revealed in a February 2023 site inspection report PFAS contamination in one of its wells at the Santa Fe Army Aviation Support Facility adjacent to the Santa Fe Regional Airport—likely from firefighting foam containing the chemicals. It’s the same foam that caused large-scale contamination at a New Mexico military base near Clovis, spurring the US government to test other facilities.

Just how much PFAS is below the Santa Fe facility, whether it actually came from the airport facility and how much has moved to La Cienega and La Cieneguilla, however, remain among unanswered questions.

When Santa Fe Public Utilities Director John Dupuis read the National Guard report, he questioned what he calls a risky conclusion it contained. Military officials assumed the PFAS contamination at the air base in Santa Fe was confined to a perched aquifer—or an impermeable rock base that would control the spread of PFAS.

“We don’t want to just assume it’s perched and that it’s not going anywhere,” Dupuis tells SFR.

Dupuis’ skepticism led the city to test some of its monitoring wells in August near the airport.

A monitoring well west of Huey Road and south of Paseo Real, near a sludge disposal facility adjacent to the city sewer plant, contained levels of contamination in varying types of PFAS ranging from .87 to 17 parts per trillion. New Mexico’s current acceptable level of PFAS is set at 40 ppt, however the EPA has proposed a standard for drinking water limiting certain PFAS chemicals to 4 ppt.

PFAS were not detected, however, when the city later hired contractors to test its drinking water wells.

Then, in November, Santa Fe County reported half of six private wells sampled in La Cienega and La Cieneguilla tested positive for PFAS—at levels between 1.8 ppt and 25 ppt. The main production well for the La Cienega mutual domestic system, which has about 150 connections, did not test positive for PFAS.

News of PFAS contamination in La Cienega and La Cieneguillas, which is home to approximately 4,000 people, has led to fear and worry.

“Residents of our community do not know who to turn to for support or information about PFAS. The potential for confusion and the spread of misinformation due to lack of guidance from our public officials is high, and we need someone who can help summarize this complicated data and provide clear answers to our community,” reads a letter the La Cienega Valley Association, a community planning and advocacy group, sent Feb. 6 to the National Guard, US Environmental Protection Agency, Santa Fe City Council and Santa Fe County Commission.

With just a handful of wells in the county’s sample, other well owners face the financial burden of costly lab tests, argues the group.

“We live in a traditionally underserved area of this community and are seeking the cooperation and support of each of your agencies in assessing the sources of contamination of these wells, assisting residents in obtaining testing and filtration systems and remediating the sources of contamination once they have been identified,” the letter continues.

The letter also raises the question of whether outdated infrastructure at the Paseo Real Wastewater Treatment Facility, including a documented failure to comply with the Clean Water Act, could also be a factor.

Representatives from the New Mexico Environment Department also plan to meet with residents at the public forum later this week. Spokesman Jorge Estrada tells SFR the department is working to identify responsible parties because the New Mexico Hazardous Waste and Water Quality Act makes it illegal to release PFAS into the environment. In September, NMED published an informational pamphlet about PFAS for private well owners.

Santa Fe County spokeswoman Olivia Romo tells SFR the county plans to use a state grant to assess the extent of contamination, identify potential capital projects and conduct outreach. It also formed a “PFAS Coordination Team,” which includes a public health and community planning expert, as well as a professional translator.

Meanwhile, Albuquerque law firm Singleton Schreiber filed a lawsuit on March 6 on behalf of the residents of the La Cieneguilla and La Cienega against 3M, TYCO, Dupont, Chemours and other manufacturers of aqueous film forming foam. The firm sent mailers to households in the area seeking people to join what they hope will be a class action.

“Unaware that their household water had been tainted by toxic PFAS chemicals, these individuals received no prior warning from the corporations responsible for supplying and producing these hazardous substances.” Brian Colón, managing partner of Singleton Schreiber’s New Mexico Offices and a former state auditor, said in a news release about the litigation.

As the community deals with an unpredictable dilemma, Romero advocated for scientists and residents to steer decisions about PFAs clean up.

“If we have a good water authority based upon scientists and people like myself that understand and know the water,” he says, “we could have a more proactive recourse when these issues approach us, rather than having it become a political issue and playing the blame game.”