When 18,900 gallons of raw sewage leaked into the Animas River at 7 a.m. Aug. 24, the city of Aztec responded by 8:30 a.m. but did not notify downstream water users of potential contaminants until more than 6 hours later.
“If raw sewage reaches a river, some impact to water quality is expected. For this reason, timely reporting, public notification, and prompt efforts to contain and stop the discharge are the priorities,” said Jorge Estrada, public relations coordinator for the New Mexico Environment Department.
Estrada said his office is working “to confirm with the city when and how notifications were made to the Office of Emergency Management and Office of the State Engineer.”
According to emails received by the Tri-City Record, San Juan County Emergency Manager Mike Mestas was notified by the city of Aztec at 12:15 p.m., 6 hours and 15 minutes after the city learned of the breach.
The city of Aztec was required to notify the NMED within 24 hours, and then submit a written report within five days. Estrada confirmed this notification occurred, and Aztec interim City Manager Troy Morris shared a copy of the report with the Tri-City Record.
In that report, the city states that Mestas was “immediately contacted.”
Morris told the Tri-City Record that the city waited until “after gaining control of the situation” at 12:15 p.m. to notify the San Juan County Office of Emergency Management.
“Immediate to most people means right now,” Morris said, adding to others it means you get the situation under control and then you notify.
He told the Tri-City Record this has been a learning experience for the city of Aztec.
“It dang sure let[s you know when you have a good action plan and when don’t,” Morris said. “We’re working on action plan” for the future.
In reference to the reporting of the leak, Morris provided an email correspondence between Mestas and Eledge Ditch Commissioner Mark Lukow that confirmed the delayed notification.
In his email, Lukow told Mestas that the state engineer had not been notified until “approximately noon the day of the event.”
Mestas wrote in the same email that once he was told of the breach, his office notified “City of Farmington, Lower Valley Water, and Flora Vista Water. I also notified the 911 Center, NMSU Extension Agent Bonnie Hopkins, the Water Commissioner, and the Office of the State Engineer. These notifications were completed by approximately 12:30 p.m.”
The Tri-City Record through an Inspection of Public Records Act request also learned that Lukow called the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office at 11:06 a.m. Aug. 26, to report the city of Aztec “workers started pumping (water) out of the Eledge Ditch and did not notify the correct authorities,” according to the CAD narrative.
Lukow told deputies this activity “was against the law.”
However, at this time no charges have been filed.
Morris said on the next day, the city needed to clean out the hoses used to pump raw sewage, so they ran a clean hose into the Eledge Ditch and “ran enough water to clean the hose out.”
At the time the city was unaware they needed to permit to do that, Morris said, adding “we are aware of it now.”
Morris also told the Tri-City Record that it was a “concerned citizen” notified the city of the breach at 7 a.m., and said, “water was coming up out of the pavement near the lift station and it smells like sewer,” Morris said.
Morris said city personnel mobilized and arrived at 8:30 a.m. to 603 Llano Street, where they found “a major structural break” in a 12-inch discharge pipe. It was leaking raw sewage into a storm drain that led to the river.
City personnel took steps with the city’s vacuum truck, working to “vacuum up the raw sewage,” Morris said.
The report to the NMED stated that vacuum trucks arrived at 10 a.m., and stopped the surface flow toward the river.
Andrew DiCamillo, interim public works director, told the Tri-City Record that his department’s vacuum truck was in Albuquerque for repairs and he had to scramble for help from the city of Bloomfield, Sychar LLC and Tri Energy Services.
When questioned about the vacuum truck, Morris said the city’s “large” truck was in Albuquerque, and the small truck was used for site mitigation.
The on-site trucks pumped “27 2,000 gallon loads,” or approximately 54,000 gallons of wastewater were taken to the wastewater treatment plant, according to the report. Those hauling operations continued until 11:05 p.m.
The report also stated that on Aug. 25, “crews completed site grading, hauled away all contaminated soil to proper disposal zones, and thoroughly disinfected the surface area with lime.”
Remediation to the area was completed by 3:16 p.m. Aug. 25, according to the report.
The Tri-City Record reached out to Mestas in response to an email statement in which he said “immediate priority in an incident such as this is life safety and notification of downstream drinking water users.”
Questions about the more than six-hour delay in notification were asked as well as whether that delay could have led to negative ramifications from the time lapse.
San Juan County spokesman Devin Neeley responded saying he doesn’t know “that that is the responsibility of emergency management.”
Morris said, “It’s our job to make the notifications,” when asked about Neeley’s comments.
Neeley also told the Tri-City Record to “look at the Gold King Mine, there were no notifications made.”
The Gold King Mine Spill happened at 10:30 a.m. Aug. 5, 2015, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment completed its first round of alerts to in-state downstream water users by 1:39 p.m., which was 3 hours and 9 minutes after the spill, according to a report in the Utah Law Review written by Clifford J. Villa of the University of New Mexico School of Law.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 notified the New Mexico Environment Department by 2 p.m. Aug. 6, 2015, the same report stated.
Neeley told the Tri-City Record he was unaware of “statutory time frames” that would require an entity to notify water users of toxic substances being dumped into irrigation and drinking water.
On Sept. 7, 2015, the EPA’s Gold King Mine Stakeholders Alert Notification Plan was adopted, and it stated that downstream users to Durango, which includes approximately 30 miles of the Animas River, should be notified within one hour of the event.
Neeley also told the Tri-City Record that if there were concerns about water quality in the Animas River, then the EPA should be contacted.
dalbright@tricityrecordnm.com
dmayeux@tricityrecordnm.com
