Hill AFB looking for input on indoor air sampling program
An F-35 jet arrives at it new operational base Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, at Hill Air Force Base, in northern Utah. Two F-35 jets touched down Wednesday afternoon at the base, about 20 miles north of Salt Lake City. A total of 72 of the fighter jets and their pilots will be permanently based in Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
Office buildings shown at Hill Air Force base's Falcon Hill National Aerospace Research park, an Air Force Enhanced Use Lease program that allows private entities to lease underused military land.
HILL AIR FORCE BASE — The Air Force will hold a public meeting to accept comment on changes to its indoor air sampling program.
The program, which tests for chemical vapor oozing from contaminated groundwater, has been in place since the early 2000s after it was discovered that the vapors from the contaminated groundwater could seep into homes.
Decades ago, before environmental laws regulated how certain chemicals were disposed, workers at Hill Air Force Base dumped toxic aircraft-cleaning material into disposal pits. Those chemicals bled into the ground and eventually contaminated the shallow groundwater, which moved the chemicals off the base and into the communities surrounding it.
RELATED: Hill AFB to remove nearly 500 homes from chemical testing program
Hill plans to modify the program slightly and will now offer a new “vapor intrusion mitigation system” to Weber and Davis County who have vapor intrusion in their homes at a certain threshold.
A public meeting on the new plan will be held from from 5 to 7 p.m. June 22 at the Riverdale Community Center, 4360 Parker Dr., Riverdale
The new plan can be viewed online at www.hill.af.mil/OU15ProposedPlan/. Comments on the plan can be mailed to Mark Roginske, 7290 Weiner St., Bldg. 383, Hill AFB, UT 84056-5003 or emailed to mark.roginske@us.af.mil.
The Air Force offers indoor air testing annually during the heating season, November through March, when home heating systems are operating.
If you think your home needs to be sampled, visit hill.af.mil/iap or call 385-474-8577.
You can reach reporter Mitch Shaw at mishaw@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @mitchshaw23 or like him on Facebook at facebook.com/mitchshaw.standardexaminer.
