UNM Professor David Correria joins us to discuss his recent article, “The Environmental Disaster You’ve Never Heard Of: The Kirtland Air Force Jet Fuel Spill”. Here is what has been uncovered so far: Somewhere between 8-24,000,000 gallons of aviation gas and jet fuel has leaked from Kirtland Air Force Base fuel tanks resulting in a toxic plume 1,000 feet wide, and more than a mile long, moving northeast from the Base and headed directly for Albuquerque’s municipal water wells and the Ridgecrest neighborhood. Unlike the crude oil in the Exxon Valdez disaster of “only” 12,000,000 gallons, the leaked gas contains a very serious threat to human health: ethylene dibromide or EDB. Every gallon of this aviation gas contains enough EDB to contaminate millions of gallons of drinking water. The EPA considers no amount of EDB in drinking water safe for human health; however, KAFB’s plume-monitoring wells have found dangerous EDB concentrations in shallow wells on the base at concentrations of 240,000 ppt. Nevertheless, in the 40+ years since this gas began leaking, almost no remediation has occurred. Please join host Stephen Spitz and Dr. David Correria to learn more about how and why so little has been done and why this spill has attracted so little attention. Produced with the assistance of Joe Green
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