The Griggs and Walnut Ground Water Plume Superfund

EPA ID# NMD0002271286
Site ID: 0605116

• Current Status Information - UPDATED November 2006
• NPL Site Narrative for Griggs & Walnut Ground Water Plume
• EPA Superfund Website

Doña Ana County provides this webpage in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency to help keep the citizens of Doña Ana County informed of issues that affect them.

Unilateral Administrative order (Draft of August 2008)

• EPA’s Draft Unilateral Administrative Order for Remedial Design and Remedial Action

Statement of Work (substantially complete)

EPA has issued a substantially complete Statement of Work for the Griggs and Walnut groundwater plume site. This document will allow the City of Las Cruces and Doña Ana County to commence the procurement process.

Download Statement of Work

EPA’s Record of Decision

EPA issued the Record of Decision in June 0f 2007. The New Mexico Environmental Department, The City of Las Cruces, and The County of Donna Ana concur with the Record of Decision. The City and County now intend to assume responsibility to implement the selected remedy.

• Record of Desicion (Complete Document) – (PDF - 4,958k)


By Section
• Declaration & Desicion Summary - Sections 1 to 5 (PDF - 3,109k)
• Desicion Summary - Sections 6 to 14 (PDF - 1,147k)
• Responsiveness Summary (PDF - 804k)
• Appendix C & D (PDF - 841k)

The Proposed Plan to remediate the Contamination

EPA in collaboration with the City of Las Cruces and the County of Doña Ana developed a recommended approach for removing the contamination at the Superfund Site. It is called the Proposed Plan. It has been developed based on the information from the Remedial Investigation and the Feasibility Study and with input from the New Mexico Environmental Department.

• The Proposed Plan - Updated December 2006

Public Meeting on December 7, 2006

To provide the public with an opportunity to comment on the Proposed Plan, a public meeting is scheduled on December 7, 2006. The public meeting will provide the community an opportunity to:

• Discuss the cleanup alternatives;
• ask any questions about the proposed plan; and
• offer formal comments on any of the documents developed for the site. The meeting will be held at:
  
  Sierra Middle School
  1700 East Spruce
  Las Cruces, NM
  
  INFORMAL MEET AND GREET:
  6-7:00 PM
  Meeting begins at 7:00pm.
  
  
• Comments may also be submitted in writing (letter) or electronically, (e-mail) to Petra Sanchez, EPA Remedial Project Manager, (sanchez.petra@epa.gov) or to Beverly Negri, EPA, Community Involvement Coordinator at (egri.beverly@epa.gov).

The official 30 day public comment period begins on December 4, 2006 and ends on January 5, 2007. The final decisions regarding the remediation of the GWP Site will only be made after public comments are considered.

Site Location

The GWP Site is located in the City of Las Cruces, Dona Ana County, New Mexico. North Solano Avenue to the west; just past I-25 to the east; East Hadley Avenue to the north; and East Griggs Avenue to the south approximately bound the GWP Site. The approximate area of the GWP Site is 0.5 miles by 1.8 miles. (See Map of Area and Estimate of Concentration)

• Griggs & Walnut Groundwater Plume Site Map

Public Health Issues

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is the Federal agency created under the Superfund Act that is charged with taking responsive public health actions to prevent harmful exposures and disease related to toxic substances. The ATSDR works in close collaboration with local, state and other federal agencies, with tribal governments, local communities and local health care providers. The goal of ATSDR is to help prevent or reduce the harmful effects of exposure to hazardous substances on human health. The ATSDR finalized a Public Health Assessment (PHA) in February 2005 that reviewed available health-related data for the Griggs and Walnut site. The PHA indicates concentrations of PCE are below levels expected to cause adverse health effects. ATSDR has concluded that the Griggs and Walnut Site presents no apparent public health hazard for past or current PCE exposure resulting from the municipal water supply. The ATSDR report is available at:

Thomas Branigan Memorial Library
200 East Picacho Avenue
Las Cruces, NM 88001
(575) 528-4000


The ATSDR Public Health Assessment is available by clicking the link below. The results of this report are summarized in the (Proposed Plan).

• THE ATSDR PUBLIC HEALTH ASSESSMENT

Remedial Investigation & Feasibility Study

• Remedial Investigation
• Feasibility Study

Preliminary Studies by the Joint Superfund Project

• Phase I – Evaluation of Treatment Technologies
• Phase II – Conceptual Design for PCE Treatment
• Phase II – Conceptual Design for Uranium Treatment

Source of Contamination

The source areas of contamination to the ground water have been identified as historical releases that occurred on City and County property. Given the multiple land use activities that have occurred over time on the properties, the releases were most likely associated with either maintenance activities, or illegal dumping by unidentified parties.