BASE MANEUVERS
Kimery, Anthony L.
BASE MANEUVERS The Air Force serves up toxic soup BY ANTHONY L. KIMERY Tinker Air Force Base, sprawling across an Oklahoma City suburb, is the largest facility of its kind in the world. It keeps...
...Testifying before Synar's subcommittee, Jarmon said Tinker "employees often exhibit little or no concern for the consequences of their actions on the environment" and that base officials refuse to acknowledge problems...
...In addition to the outright illegal discharge of raw, untreated chemicals, state health authorities found "at least 282 violations of [Tinker's industrial waste treatment plant] discharge permit limits" between August 1983 and September 1984 for "total cyanide, free cyanide, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, total chromium...
...Tinker was illegally discharging more than a hundred toxic-waste streams carrying untreated cancer-causing chemicals into public waters...
...He also said that "unpermitted discharges and discharge-permit violations have released copious amounts of environmentally dangerous materials throughout the base and into streams that leave the base property...
...Negligence at Tinker would have gone unnoticed if the Oklahoma Water Resources Board had not conducted an on-site investigation in the spring of 1984...
...Almost 100 per cent of the samples of the water from streams leaving Tinker is cleaner than when it entered the base...
...The danger to area waters is grave...
...And, complains Jarmon, these illegal streams were commonly known to base personnel but "were neither listed on the Tinker discharge application nor was the application updated to reflect the discharges...
...As of the latest state inspection, such a line was still leaking, indicated by visible accumulation of "wastewater with a metallic blue sheen," according to the Water Board...
...If that aquifer becomes contaminated, large segments of the state's water supply will become undrinkable...
...We have procedures in which we stop the streams and confine spills and take action to clean up spills before we let the water go again...
...Since the health and safety of citizens on and off base are involved, this program should be initiated immediately...
...Now, more than a year after Synar's hearing, "Tinker still has serious problems—they haven't come close to solving everything," says Jarmon...
...Synar concluded the hearing by saying there didn't appear to be any immediately serious threat to anyone, which contradicts the findings presented by his own committee, the state, the EPA, and the GAO...
...Tinker should reread its own consultant's reports...
...And, while Jarmon has toned down his criticism of Tinker, Mankin has not...
...Tinker has shown brazen negligence and gross unconcern, says Don Gray, an investigator for the Subcommittee on Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources chaired by Oklahoma Congressman Mike Synar...
...But it has not dflne so, an examination of official records reveals...
...Response time to pollution episodes often stretches into months or years, resulting in continued contamination to state waters," ¦ the agency noted...
...by Tinker are found in these waters, the state recently warned...
...Major General Richard A. Burpee, Tinker's former commander, denies any wrongdoing or negligence, maintaining that "we monitor the water as it enters the base and as it leaves...
...This pollution—it's at least as important as anything else they do on base," says Mankin...
...Inspectors discovered an estimated fifteen-gallons-per-minute discharge of "purple water" containing tet-rachloroethylene at a concentration of 72.9 parts per million...
...In a further misleading public statement, one that implied that documented sources of ground-water contamination have yet to be pinpointed, a Tinker spokesperson told the state's Republican U.S...
...The Board is concerned that there are "little or no data to evaluate their integrity," although these tanks and pipes store and transport industrial wastes and toxic fluids such as jet fuel...
...At the insistence of environmentalists, in August 1985, the day before a political fund-raiser for Synar, he finally rapped Tinker, backing his charges with evidence he and his staff had possessed for eight months...
...Despite repeated demands, "Tinker has communicated no plans to verify the integrity" of these structures, the Water Board says...
...Mankin of the Geological Survey refers to the closing of these wells as "a very serious problem" with respect to central Oklahoma's ground-water supply...
...Although the Air Force experts made remedial recommendations in late 1981 to bring the plant's discharges into compliance with permit limits, they were largely ignored...
...A five-year-old unpublished report prepared by the Air Force's Engineering and Service Center—a report I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act after the Air Force denied its existence—scolds Tinker for major problems in the way it treated toxic wastes for many years...
...In 1981, a technical division of the Air Force scolded Tinker for its toxic-waste-disposal methods, but nothing has changed...
...The problems that have been identified," Jarmon told the subcommittee, "if not [soon] corrected, will result in continuing and long-term pollution...
...Monitoring wells requested by the health department for identifying potential migration of contaminants from [an old off-base toxic-waste dump that is leaking] have not been installed," complains Mark Coleman, deputy commissioner of Oklahoma Environmental Health Services...
...Tinker sits atop the zone that recharges central Oklahoma's only underground supply with fresh water...
...At the time of the Congressional hearings, Jarmon said there had "been no actions by base personnel to...
...The report notes that the plant had "been out of compliance numerous times during the past ten years and has developed a bad reputation with Region VI EPA officials...
...water supplies in the area...
...As a result, several highly dangerous pollutants have been found in record-high levels in area surface waters...
...They show little or no concern that gross amounts of pollutants continue enter the ground water "The potential for serious ground-water contamination is enormous," agrees Ron Jarmon, head of the state's Water Quality Division...
...As far as we can determine," echoes Bill Hathaway of the EPA's regional office, "Tinker has never monitored these sources or attempted to eliminate them...
...From what he has seen, he believes Tinker continues to show little or no concern that gross amounts of hazardous and potentially harmful pollutants are entering nearby parks and residential areas...
...Alarming levels of TCE were found in the two on-base wells, both of them near Building 3001...
...Its record on this matter has been clearly one of no concern...
...The potential for contamination [of the aquifer below] is clear and immediate," testified Charles J. Mankin, director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, before Synar's subcommittee more than a year ago...
...Its summary noted "major problems including unpermitted discharges, toxic material discharges, current and past spill events, improper storage of hazardous or toxic materials, and base procedures resulting in potential or immediate contamination to waters of the state...
...A great many of the large storm drains on the base continue to empty "contaminated runoff and uncontrolled...
...That is patently false," subcommittee investigator Gray responds...
...When base personnel began looking for other illegal waste streams not discovered by the Water Board, they found several originating from other buildings and emptying into yet another creek...
...Building 3001 is the most heavily industrialized facility on the base, and the worst ground-water contamination can be found beneath it...
...ranged from 23 per cent to 2,815 per cent of the permitted discharge quantity maximum...
...He cited a new GAO report critical of Tinker's continuing pollution problems, though the information had been revealed by the agency months before...
...Gross violations" of the permitted limit of phenols in discharge waters from the treatment plant "were as much as 19,076 per cent above the maximum allowable level," the Water Board reported, while "chronic violations of permit discharge limits for hexavalent chromium...
...Base officials maintain that there are only occasional spills of chemicals, all of which are appropriately cleaned up...
...Such findings glaringly contradict the Air Force's adamant position that it has monitored all the water entering and leaving the base...
...And as the water agency he heads pointed out many months ago, "to continue the current haphazard system will undermine attempts to gain control" of Tinker's illegal toxic-materials handling...
...EPA Region VI has, indeed, cited Tinker as a "major violator" of pollution-control laws...
...One of those consultants told Tinker that if its toxic-waste-disposal activities were not soon stopped, they have a "high potential to contaminate...
...Leaks are known to have occurred" from numerous jet-fuel transfer lines "with no cleanup and no listing of such spills," notes the Water Board...
...It keeps the U.S...
...The importance of swift action to remedy the water-pollution problems at Tinker cannot be overemphasized," was Jarmon's response...
...The Water Board was able to document at least forty violations at the base...
...Potentially dangerous spills at Tinker are chronic, records show, including spills of drums full of carcinogenic solvents like trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene...
...While Jarmon admits that Tinker has begun to identify the course and fate of some waste lines, especially those originating in Building 3001, Jarmon stresses that "many line changes still have not been made...
...At an inspection about a year ago, this illegal discharge continued to flow...
...Air Force officials routinely sweep the base's waste-disposal practices under the rug to avoid scandal...
...The purple water had been flowing for an undetermined time and was "never reported to appropriate state and Federal regulatory agencies," according to the Water Board...
...While Tinker is making efforts to clean up its toxic-waste dumping, Jarmon says, "unpermitted discharges nevertheless continue...
...Excessive concentrations" of a soup of potent carcinogens used Anthony L. Kimery writes regularly for the Oklahoma Gazette, Oklahoma Business Magazine, and the Oklahoma Observer...
...The number of illegal streams they have found are many beyond what we've found," says Jarmon, adding, "while they've begun to clean them up, many continue to flow...
...Federal and state records clearly show a pattern of consistent and chronically negligent handling and dumping of toxic materials for at least a decade...
...For more than a decade, Tinker has illegally discharged untreated cancer-causing chemicals into public waters, despite reprimands by the state, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the General Accounting Office (GAO), and the Air Force itself...
...While Tinker prepares for an air war, it assaults the water with deadly chemicals...
...This is in spite of the fact that contamination was discovered...
...Samples pulled by the state health department confirmed the presence of TCE, which is why Tinker had been forced to close the three wells in the first place...
...But in statements to the press, Air Force spokesmen insist the base has not yet "ascertained whether any wastes are leaking into the ground...
...at the boundary of the old landfill...
...The results of an August inspection are not yet available...
...The Board found chronic, widespread violations resulting in potentially life-threatening hazards...
...One sixty-inch storm drain originating in Building 3001 had a constant discharge Tinker officials claimed was "entirely composed of cooling water...
...There's no way Tinker can deny what it has done...
...It knows very well there is ground-water contamination...
...and total phenols...
...And Tinker was already aware of ground-water contamination...
...As a consequence of Tinker's dumping, two on-base water wells and a private off-base one have had to be closed...
...Whether they have been stopped permanently remains unknown...
...Altogether, more than 100 unpermitted toxic-waste streams have been discovered, emptying into four streams that leave the base and enter state waters...
...All over the base, "numerous spills of paint, solvents, aviation fuel, oil, and various chemicals were quite evident," reported the Water Board, adding that none were "properly cleaned up or reported...
...Senator, Don Nickles, that base personnel are working to "identify possible pollution sources...
...Among the chemicals Tinker dumps locally are trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene, methylene chloride, and many other carcinogens, teratogens, and mutagens, all at levels grossly exceeding EPA limits for these compounds in drinking water...
...And further investigation by the Water Board revealed that Tinker has serious leakages from segments of its estimated 2.4-million-gallon underground storage structures, built in the 1940s...
...liquid wastes" into surface waters, the Board says...
...Burpee's statements only highlight the "grossly negligent" concern Tinker has for endangering the lives of its neighbors, Gray says...
...There has been only minimal effort by the Air Force to correct them...
...GAO investigators probing Tinker's waste-disposal activities say base commanders have routinely swept the base's practices under the rug to avoid a scandal during their respective tenures...
...Air Force in the skies by repairing, maintaining, and refitting its planes...
...Tinker failed to find the TCE—and other chemicals—because it did not look for them...
...The Air Force's worst polluter, Tinker demonstrates that toxic wastes come not only from the private sector but also from the Government itself, which is supposed to safeguard the environment...
...The violations continued through January of this year...
...Employees continue performing environmentally hazardous activities...
...The levels of some, such as TCE, are the highest ever recorded in surface waters of the United States...
...Nearly a year passed, however, before the Air Force began cleaning up some of the streams around Tinker...
...In later statements, base officials avoided using the words "toxic chemicals" and referred instead to "trash" in local creeks and streams that could, somehow, easily be removed...
...But House investigator Gray protests: "This is absolutely brazen...
...determine the nature and extent of the contamination," despite repeated demands by the state and the EPA...
...But the problem persists...
...Some of the most seriously contaminated of these illegal discharges continue to flow unabated today...
...The Board found that violations are rarely, if ever, reported, that spills go un-cleaned, and that such hazards as PCBs have been illegally disposed of off the base...
...Admitting wrongdoing, base officials promised the Congressional panel, the state, and the EPA that it would immediately cease all illegal dumping and negligent handling of toxic wastes...
Vol. 50 • December 1986 • No. 12
