Another Airport Contamination Update Planned

Officials will give an update later this week on the status of contamination cleanup in the Salina Airport industrial area.

According to the City of Salina, public entities including the City, Salina Airport Authority, Salina USD 305 and Kansas State Polytechnic Salina will hold a public meeting to discuss the status of the former Schilling Air Force Base environmental cleanup project on Friday morning at 9:00 in Room 105 of the City-County Building, 300 W. Ash St.

At issue is contamination, things like solvents that have seeped into the ground, left behind when the Air Force vacated the base. The area is now the Salina Regional Airport. The main concern is two large underground plumes of contamination, one in the north part of the Airport Industrial Area, and another on the south end. A large plume of the solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE, is in the groundwater and soil. TCE at the time was used as an industrial solvent and has since been classified as a human carcinogen.

Representatives from the Salina Public Entities, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), and Dragun Corporation will be present at the meeting.

The public is welcome and the media are encouraged to attend.