Tucson's cluster of chemically tainted southside wells won't be cleaned up for two years.
The common solvent trichloroethylene or TCE remains underground like an unseen stain on the pure reputation of Western groundwater.
And slowly the pollution plume moves northwest, as the U.S. Air Force takes one step at a time on its timetable to spend $20 million cleaning up its own groundwater pollution at Hughes Aircraft Co.
Air Force Plant No. 44, operated by Hughes since 1951, has the worst off-site groundwater pollution of any of the 14 government-owned, contractor-operated facilities in the country, an Air Force official said last week.
The discovery of widespread groundwater pollution on the Air Force property came after the Environmental Protection Agency went to Hughes in March 1981 to investigate possible leakage from old, unlined toxic waste ponds and pits.
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The EPA inspectors found TCE at 4,600 parts per billion — 92 times the state standard — in Hughes' former drinking-water well. For years it had supplied drinking water to thousands of employees.
But Air Force officials are quick to say that Hughes is not the only contributor to the TCE in Tucson's groundwater.
The EPA, the state and the city are looking at other possible polluters — past and present — north of Hughes at the Tucson International Airport.
High on the list of suspect sources are wastes dumped in arroyos and landfills by the military and private industry, mostly from aircraft and electronics fabrication.
In fact, the airport site is on the list of the nation's most hazardous waste sites — all candidates for cleanup money from the $1.6 billion federal Superfund.
Thirty-six wells have shown detectable amounts of TCE, a commonly used industrial chemical suspected of causing cancer and damaging the nervous system, liver, kidneys and other organs.
Among those 36 wells is the small, private well of one southside family whose members were unknowingly consuming water containing up to 400 parts per billion of TCE and other noxious chemicals.
Tucsonans are not drinking TCE at levels that exceed any health standard, says F. Thomas Jefferson, a Tucson Water engineer.
Wells that pump groundwater containing trace amounts are kept in service, and that water is mixed in the larger distribution system, he said.
So far Tucson Water has lost seven production wells because of TCE concentrations exceeding 5 parts per billion, the state's own action level.
The closed wells stretch from immediately north of Hughes to Irvington Road, between the Santa Cruz River and the Old Nogales Highway.
Another batch of five wells north of Irvington Road between the Santa Cruz River and South Sixth Avenue shows traces of TCE, but not at levels high enough to close the wells, Jefferson said.
Tucson Water owns 230 wells, but uses only 150 wells throughout the year.
Meanwhile, the polluted plume continues to move at an estimated rate of 700 feet a year.
But city and state officials who are directly involved in the cleanup are not critical of the timetable placing June 1985 as the start-up date for actual pumping and aerating — or "air-stripping" — to rid the water of TCE.
"In my opinion, the Air Force, is dealing with us up front," Jefferson said. "I don't believe they'd deliberately delay. To my knowledge, there's been no holdup of funds."
Tucson Water is drilling 12 to 15 wells for exploratory purposes to aid in the Superfund investigation, Jefferson said.
"I don't think they're stalling," said T.J. Harrison, an assistant city attorney.
In Phoenix, Pamela Beilke, coordinator of the state's TCE task force, said:
"The Air Force is into this so far, I don't think they're going to back out. On the technical level, they're moving ahead at a reasonable rate. I feel they're moving ahead quite well."
The Air Force's strategy is to locate its own plume — as separate from any industrial wastes coming from the Tucson International Airport.
So far 19 monitoring wells at Hughes and at the airport, plus those under construction on the Papago Indian Reservation, are the key to identifying the plume.
According to the Air Force, the schedule for actual pumping and treatment of polluted water is 60 to 90 days behind.
At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Chuck Alford, environmental program manager for the Air Force industrial plants, attributes the delay to extra time it has taken to gain easements on Indian land and the Tucson International Airport to drill monitoring wells.
The Air Force's good intentions have been under scrutiny because at Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Michigan, the state had to go to court to obtain a consent decree from the Air Force to clean up TCE pollution to the state's satisfaction.
Also, under a "memorandum of understanding" signed in August after two years of sensitive negotiation by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Defense, any conflict over pollution cleanup eventually must be resolved between the EPA administrator and the secretary of defense.
The EPA, the federal agency designated to protect the environment and enforce the legislation, has no authority over the Defense Department.
The wording of the agreement was described as "vague" by an Air Force public relations official. A skeptical Tucson official, who asked not to be identified, said, "It (the memorandum) in no way, shape or form commits the Air Force to take responsibility for pollution in any complex situation."
It appears that the Air Force is saying that if it is not the "sole source" of pollution, it will not conduct investigations — which are valuable and expensive — off its property, the anonymous official said.
But Alford defended the memorandum. He interpreted it as saying the Air Force would pay the EPA to conduct investigations, "but it's not a hard-and-fast rule."
The Air Force, under federal statute, is required to clean up its own mess and will do so, Alford said.
"There is no possibility of us backing out. We're committed to the whole trip," Alford said.
The Air Force already has spent or committed $3 million, a state official said.
As to the level of cleanup, an executive order ensures that the Air Force will clean up the pollution in accordance with local and state standards, even though there is no federal standard, Alford said.
As it turns out, a preliminary assessment shows that it would not be unreasonably more expensive to clean up the polluted water to the state's 5 parts per billion standard than to clean it up to the Air Force's preferred level of 270 parts per billion, Alford said.
Hughes has the worst off-site pollution problem of the 14 Air Force industrial plants, Alford said. But Hughes does not bear liability for the cleanup because "The practices employed were known to the Air Force and to the local environmental authorities."
"The business is 100 percent defense, and all the costs of Hughes doing business at Tucson is ultimately paid for in the missile business there. There was no gross negligence or malfeasance, nothing illegal or even extraordinarily stupid," Alford said.
The only other off-site pollution problem is at Air Force Plant No. 4, General Dynamics Corp.'s F-16 assembly plant in Fort Worth, Texas, he said.
Also, the Air Force is trying to find out the problems by investigating all its facilities. "We've decided not to sit back and let it hit us by surprise."