A Bad Case of Gas

But Romano and other neighbors are not happy with the city, either, which turned down their request to be added to the lawsuit. "The city seems to feel it's important to sue over contamination for future property owners but not for long-term citizens in East Montclair," she says. "They care more about vacant property than they do about our homes."

"The citizens' group wanted the city to represent them, and the city attorney's office can't do that," says attorney Higley. He says the city encouraged neighbors to retain their own counsel, and one of them did. East Montclair resident Rocky Hoery filed his own suit against the Air Force in federal court last May, claiming that his property's value had been affected by the plume. The Air Force has yet to respond to the suit, says Hoery's attorney, Kevin Hannon, who asked his client not to speak with Westword.

No one, including the neighbors, is saying there's any short-term health risk.

CDPHE officials have speculated that there may be a long-term risk of cancer, but the Environmental Protection Agency has not. The difference, says Edson, is that the EPA no longer uses a years-old standard for factoring long-term risk. John Student of the Denver Department of Environmental Health won't hazard a guess about the groundwater's health risk to residents. But he says he errs on the side of caution. "Right now the CDPHE has the more conservative numbers. The bottom line is, we'll need to review the remedial investigation report. Until we have that, we won't have the information we need."

While "long-term" is considered to be thirty years from now when it comes to potential health risks, completely cleaning up the groundwater could be a much lengthier process. "It could take anywhere from ten years to 100 years, depending on the technology we use," says Edson.

The conversion agency has installed several wells at the northern boundary of the base that draw water to the surface and treat it; the water is then re-injected south of the wells. Officials say 100 pounds of contaminants have been removed so far.

Community activist Anne Callison says that is an outmoded technology that "would take twenty years to do nothing."

But the development agencies aren't concerned. According to the LRA, none of the plumes at Lowry are underneath any property that the authority is developing. And Dick Anderson of the Stapleton Development Corporation, the organization overseeing the redevelopment of the old airport, says he thinks "the Air Force has taken all the action they need to take. We don't believe the Lowry plume will have any impact on Stapleton."

Air Force officials don't apologize for their slow approach. "Until we collect additional information, we can't say whether or not a pathway doesn't exist," says Tim Caretti, Lowry's environment coordinator. "We don't feel like we're putting anybody at risk." He adds that he hasn't seen any outcry at recent public meetings because he hasn't seen any people. He says that 1,500 invitations were sent to nearby residents to attend a meeting last May and that four showed up.

Irene Gomez, president of the EMNA, says that although she got a notice, she doesn't believe that 1,500 notices were sent out; she's still waiting for the Air Force to send her a list of who was contacted. But she does say that many neighbors are complacent and waiting for others to lead the fight against the plume. "Nobody's died that I know of from this contamination," Gomez says, "but I look forward to living to be eighty, not sixty."