New Mexico environmental officials announced Thursday an agreement with four Curry County dairy farms to test groundwater contaminated by a plume of so-called “forever chemicals” emanating from Cannon Air Force Base.
The state says the agreement represents “an important step toward full restoration.” Zachary Ogas, general counsel for the Department of the Environment, told Source NM that the agreement came about because environmental officials “spent a lot of time in Clovis with the people who were actually affected.”
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The contamination was first discovered in 2015, and the state has now identified a four-mile-long plume of firefighting foam containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances called PFAS. These man-made chemicals are difficult to break down and can accumulate in water, soil, and human and animal bodies around the world, including Clovis.
Since then, the USUS Air Force announced it has spent $74 million to treat the contamination. Nevertheless, state environmental officials said in a news release Thursday that the Air Force has not responded to requests to jointly develop a cleanup plan because of the ongoing litigation.
An Air Force spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the agency “continues to prioritize actions that address cleanup of areas that pose the greatest risk to human health and continues to accelerate cleanup operations nationwide in accordance with federal cleanup laws.”
New Mexico remains mired in litigation with the U.S. Air Force over the scope of its PFAS cleanup, including a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver over New Mexico’s authority to require the federal government to comply with state hazardous waste laws. South Carolina’s multistate lawsuit includes more than 10,000 lawsuits over military and civilian PFAS contamination. Ogaz said both of these cases are pending judicial determination.
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The state spent $12 million on the investigation, damages, legal fees and PFAS cleanup, according to Thursday’s NMED news release. Ogas said the state is seeking reimbursement for those costs and future costs.
Additionally, lawmakers last year approved $12 million for a new source of drinking water for nearby private wells in Curry County contaminated with PFAS.
“We have stood in solidarity with the dairy industry since toxic PFAS contamination was discovered in the dairy industry’s water, land, herds, workers, and families,” Environment Secretary James Kenney said in a statement, adding that the companies will “learn how to manage and treat toxic PFAS contamination under Curry County, which would otherwise remain unaddressed until 2032 according to the federal cleanup schedule.”
Art Sharp of Highland Dairy outside Clovis, one of the dairy farms signing the agreement with the state, told Source NM he was “optimistic” about the state’s investigation, which he characterized as a “strategic procedure to delay and deny” off-base cleanup by U.S. Air Force officials.
“We’re going to work together and get funding to actually bypass the Air Force base and start pumping this water and cleaning it up,” Sharp said. “It’s not that complicated. All it takes is action.”
Sharp’s wells were some of the first to be affected by the plume. In 2022, we had to discard 15,000 gallons of PFAS-contaminated milk every day and euthanize 3,600 cows. Other dairies have installed filtration systems to prevent contamination, according to the New Mexico Department of Environment, which requested anonymity for fear of losing business.
“I don’t blame them,” Sharp said, noting that the contamination has already reduced property values and affected the perception of dairy farms in the area.
“They ruined my business, they ruined the future of this farm, so other farmers are afraid to go public. They just don’t want to be in the same predicament as me,” Sharp told Source NM.
