PNM to hold community meeting on groundwater well project

Sep. 20—Public Service Company of New Mexico and the state Environment Department will hold a community meeting later this month on the upcoming installation of groundwater monitoring wells in the Baca Street area.

The wells will allow the electric utility and the state agency to determine the "extent of petroleum hydrocarbon groundwater contamination" from a decades-old plume of diesel fuel at the site of a former PNM generating station, the Environment Department said in a news release. About 84,000 gallons of fuel leaked into the soil in 1952, according to the release.

Concerns about the potential spread of the plume in the Baca Street area has spurred a plan for soil and groundwater monitoring in the neighborhood. At the urging of the city, PNM will install three monitoring wells in the plume area to assess whether contaminants at a remediation site are spreading and endangering city water sources.

PNM said it would hold a public meeting with residents before any drilling work begins.

The meeting is scheduled from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at the Harold Runnels Building at 1190 St. Francis Drive.

PNM, which previously provided water service to city residents, operated the former Santa Fe Generating Station on Flagman Way — between the New Mexico School for the Deaf and Santa Fe Indian School — from 1949 to 1980 to power the city well. The facility leaked thousands of gallons of fuel oil into the ground, city officials have said.

Several years after the plant shut down, PNM began a cleanup effort at the site. The remediation work has continued under various agreements with the Environment Department.

The Santa Fe Public Well was deactivated in August 2013, according to the news release from the Environment Department.