Albuquerque, N.M. In November 1999, workers at Kirtland Air Force Base found what a fuel depot that had run since 1953 had been doing underground: leaking jet fuel and aviation gasoline through holes in underground pipes into the desert, then down roughly 450 feet to the aquifer that supplies Albuquerque.
Nobody knows how much. Officials once said about 8 million gallons. In 2012 a state geologist's first-order estimate put it at up to 24 million gallons. No better number has replaced it.
The Air Force's latest public scorecard, presented in February 2026, is upbeat. Its pump-and-treat system has cut dissolved ethylene dibromide, or EDB, by an estimated 95.8 percent in the area it operates. EDB, a carcinogenic fuel additive, was "not detected" in the water the system pulled in from late 2024 through late 2025. The base's website says no contaminants have been detected in any drinking water well tied to the site.
Also on the record: nearly 27 years after discovery, the cleanup has not left the investigation phase, there is no selected remedy, and nobody is actively treating the fuel still in the ground.
The Kirtland fuel plume, rendered in sand. Illustration.
The water got cleaner. The source did not go away.
The 95.8 percent figure measures EDB dissolved in groundwater inside the zone where four extraction wells, running since 2015, pump, treat and reinject water. It does not measure how much fuel is left.
By the Air Force's own count, soil vapor extraction and bioslurping removed about 750,000 gallons of fuel between 2003 and 2015. Against the high estimate of the spill, that is roughly 3 percent. Against the low one, under 10. Then soil vapor extraction shut down in 2015. It never restarted.
The Air Force's April 2025 slides concede that it is unclear how much fuel remains smeared beneath the water table. The benzene plume, which tracks that leftover fuel, has not shrunk. Officials told legislators in July 2025 it had grown slightly, because a rising aquifer is soaking more contaminated soil, Source NM reported.
Half a mile, and the 800-year math
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, which serves about 670,000 people, told lawmakers in 2025 that EDB has spread to within half a mile of drinking water supply wells. It calls the pump-and-treat system the only barrier between the plume and those wells.
Without active treatment of the remaining fuel, cleanup takes more than 800 years, by the utility's estimate. With current measures, it put the figure at about 100 years. In 2024, when the Air Force proposed idling two of its four extraction wells, the utility's analysis estimated EDB could break through to a supply well in 20 to 35 years. The Air Force dropped the plan after talks with the state.
Environmental manager Kelsey Bicknell has said reported progress may be "overstated" because the plume maps leave out lower-level contamination. The utility wants the Air Force to extend a 2014 contingency agreement covering what happens if the fuel reaches a supply well.
The Water Authority's estimate of cleanup time without active treatment of the remaining fuel.
Still investigating
Federal hazardous waste cleanup runs in four stages: investigate, evaluate options, select a remedy, build it. Kirtland is still on stage one.
The Air Force delivered its Phase II investigation report to the New Mexico Environment Department in spring 2025. In October 2025 the department asked for clarification. The Air Force answered in January 2026. As of the base's February 2026 public meeting, the state's official response was still pending, and no date has been set for the evaluation of cleanup options that comes next.
John-David Nance, chief of the department's Hazardous Waste Bureau, said in 2024 that "NMED is not very happy with how much progress has been made over 25 years," the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. Kirtland physical scientist Ryan Wortman expects the work to continue at least several decades more.
In April 2025, New Mexico's entire congressional delegation wrote the Air Force calling the "slow-moving, decades-long investigation" unacceptable and asking it to restart interim treatment of the fuel left at the site, including in the soil. Rep. Melanie Stansbury told the House Armed Services Committee the remaining fuel "has at times been neglected" and asked for a timeline of remedial actions over the next five years. No restart has been announced.
The Air Force's case
The Air Force's strongest argument is the one it keeps making: the drinking water is clean. No fuel contaminant has turned up in a supply well. The extraction wells have held the EDB plume back from the city's wellfields for a decade, and by its numbers have nearly wiped out dissolved EDB in the zone they work. It runs more than 170 monitoring wells, had spent about $130 million by 2024, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported, and says the pace is set by a regulatory process in which each phase must be approved before the next begins.
That is a real defense of the interim measure. It is not a plan for the fuel.
The questions
Kirtland Air Force Base and the Air Force Civil Engineer Center: How many gallons leaked, and how many remain? Will you restart soil vapor extraction or any other active source treatment before a final remedy, as the congressional delegation asked? Will you extend the 2014 contingency agreement with the Water Authority? What is the target date for the Corrective Measures Evaluation?
New Mexico Environment Department: Has the department approved or disapproved the Phase II investigation report, and when? What deadline will you set for the Corrective Measures Evaluation? Will you order interim treatment of the remaining fuel?
Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority: Where does the contingency agreement extension stand? How many supply wells sit within the risk area?
This story is based on public records and reporting through Oct. 20, 2026, including Air Force meeting materials, state records, legislative testimony, Water Authority presentations and reporting by KUNM, Source NM and the Santa Fe New Mexican. Spill volume estimates are unverified and there is no official figure for fuel remaining; we could not confirm whether the Environment Department has acted on the Phase II report since February 2026. We are looking for the department's Phase II response, current cost totals and anyone who has worked the site. Kirtland Air Force Base, the New Mexico Environment Department and the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority were asked for comment; responses will be added with a dated update. Know something? [email protected]