Albuquerque Battles to Leave Arsenic in the Water

In this desert metropolis, where it is glaringly apparent that well water brings life, most townspeople refuse to believe that the arsenic in it can also bring death.

“I’m born and raised here, and I’m still here,” said Mayor Martin Chavez, echoing the sentiments of many of his constituents. “My grandparents lived long lives here. We’ve been here for several hundred years, and we’re just fine, thank you.”

Just the same, the Environmental Protection Agency has given the city four years to slash its elevated arsenic levels and adhere to the new federal standard.

The agency says the new limit of 10 parts per billion will cut residents’ risk for certain forms of cancer by more than half. But many people here say the rule will do little more than cost the city $150 million, and Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico are suing to block it.

Most drinking water nationwide contains little or no arsenic. But about 4,000 water systems, mostly small ones in the arid West, deliver drinking water exceeding the standard to their 12 million customers, according to the EPA.

Although Albuquerque faces a particularly stiff challenge, places sprinkled throughout the nation are grappling with how to meet the new federal requirement by 2006. Some, including Park City, Utah, as well as about 500 California communities, are worried about the cancer risk and doing their best to comply. Others, such as El Paso, are fighting the government in federal court.

In Albuquerque, volcanoes and lava flows are responsible for the highest arsenic levels in the nation for a big city. The arsenic level is as high as 48 ppb, barely under the old ceiling of 50 ppb and nearly five times the new one.

In many neighborhoods here, according to a recent National Academy of Sciences report, the people who drink the water from birth face a 7-in-1,000 risk of developing lung or bladder cancer from it. In some areas, the risk is as great as 10 in 1,000. Meeting the new limit would reduce the cancer threat citywide to 3 in 1,000, according to the science academy.

John Stomp, who is in charge of the city’s water system, disputes those estimates. At the very least, he intends to press the EPA for more time to meet the standard. And he will seek permission to deliver some water with arsenic levels exceeding the new standard after it has taken effect.

“We’re one of the poorest states there is,” Stomp said. “We don’t have a lot of state money floating around to help us. Even if we did, the state money isn’t going to go to Albuquerque. It’s going to go to all the rural communities that are going to be affected.”

In most circumstances, the EPA seeks to limit cancer risks to 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 1 million. But the Bush administration faced a public relations disaster when it decided to reconsider the new, tougher standards that the Clinton administration had put in place. Faced with an outraged Congress, it quickly backtracked and adopted the Clinton standard. When President Bush was asked by a reporter last summer whether there were any actions he wished he could do over, Bush singled out the flip-flop on arsenic.

Albuquerque’s Democratic mayor has felt no such public pressure to get tough on arsenic.

“We’re not aware of people dropping off from arsenic poisoning,” Chavez said. “If there was a demonstrable health effect, there would be a different response.”

Chavez’s attitude is widely shared here. A drought has heightened appreciation for the well water that sustains the town in its beautiful but parched landscape.

“People are more concerned about not having water at all than about what is in it,” said Pam Caulfield, a sixth-grade teacher.

In Washington, Rep. Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican, fought against the tougher arsenic standard, arguing that it would actually threaten public health by forcing some rural water systems to close. “We’ll go back to having untreated water with wells,” she said during a House floor debate.

The staff of Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) says the office has received mail opposing the new standard but none supporting it.

Larry Webb, director of the water utility in suburban Rio Rancho, says he doesn’t believe the tough new standard is necessary. And he has a further message for Washington: “If you want us to meet it, you pay for it.”

A consulting firm has estimated that it would cost Rio Rancho $40 million to comply with the new standard, or $2,000 for each of the water utility’s customers.

Last year, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman repeatedly said Washington must help communities, especially small ones such as Rio Rancho, that face huge bills. The EPA is spending $20 million over two years to develop cost-effective technology. But the EPA’s 2003 budget proposal does not seek any additional funds to help communities purchase or operate those technologies.

Albuquerque cannot count on new federal money to offset any of the $150 million that is the estimated cost of complying with the new federal regulations. “I’m mad as can be,” Chavez said. “It’s clearly an unfunded mandate.”

What makes the challenge especially great in Albuquerque is that there is no central water facility where arsenic treatment could take place. Instead, the city’s water is stored in 45 beige water tanks that are nestled in neighborhoods throughout the city.

The water in some tanks has an average arsenic level as low as 2 ppb; in others, the average is 29, with occasional levels as high as 48. To meet the new 10 ppb standard citywide, Albuquerque expects to have to install treatment equipment at 20 of these facilities.

Further complicating the picture for Albuquerque is a huge public works project that should begin supplying the city with drinking water from surface water diverted from the Colorado River by 2006. If that water flows as scheduled, the city would be able to stagger the installation of the treatment equipment, spreading out the cost over several years. But if the surface water project is stalled by a lawsuit or another delay, then the city will need all of the treatment equipment in place by the Jan. 23, 2006, deadline.

Jeanne Bassett, a local environmentalist who has been the most outspoken on the issue, attributes the public’s attitude to a lack of leadership.

“I would blame elected officials for not being responsible for articulating why arsenic is dangerous,” Bassett said. “Their excuse that it’s always been there is not good enough. Lead has always been here and so has mercury. It doesn’t mean we want to digest them.”

The Sandia and Isleta pueblos, Native American reservations that border Albuquerque to the north and the south, agree. They have waged a decade-long battle to force the city and its bedroom communities to clean up the waste water they discharge into the Rio Grande, including the elevated levels of arsenic.

On the northern fringe of Albuquerque, dense housing developments yield abruptly to a vast desert landscape and the threshold of the Sandia Pueblo.

In the reservation’s modest administrative buildings, a large aerial photograph shows three discharge points from treatment plants that send waste water flowing into the Rio Grande and through the reservation. The Sandia Pueblo relies on this water for irrigation, fishing, recreation and ceremonial practices, but some of those uses have been stopped because of arsenic and other contaminants.

“We have used and lived off the river for centuries,” said Stephanie Poston, a spokeswoman for the Sandia Pueblo. “A survival of a people is at risk.”

Albuquerque is not the only place struggling against the new arsenic standard. Nebraska, El Paso and a group of small Western water systems are also suing the EPA over the standard.

In El Paso, city officials want an extension of several years past 2006. They also want an exemption from a requirement that water systems tell customers about the increased cancer risk posed even by water that meets the new standard.

But some communities with high arsenic levels, including Park City, reacted to the new standard by moving faster to treat their water. “We’ve taken an aggressive approach,” said Jerry Gibbs, Park City’s public works director. “Our City Council has already authorized us to install new arsenic treatment to have online by late next fall.”

Park City’s goal is to reduce the arsenic level to half of the EPA’s new standard. That way, the city would not have to warn its citizens of the cancer hazard posed by the water. It would also be ready if Washington finds that it had underestimated the health risks and sets an even stricter standard.

“When you spend $1 million to put a system in,” Gibbs said, “you don’t want to be set up where you’re pulling that out to put another one in after a few years.”

About 500 of the 4,000 water systems that fall short of the new federal standard are in California. There is no widespread skepticism or resistance to taking the arsenic out of the drinking water, and the state plans to provide financial help to communities that clean their water.

“Cultural views are different in the Southwest from California,” said David Spath, chief of the division of drinking water and environmental management for the state Department of Health Services. “There is an agreement here that there is a risk.”