Officials will meet on Wednesday to receive an update on contamination in the Salina Airport Industrial Area, and to consider entering into an agreement to get the problem  resolved.

A special joint meeting will convene of the Salina Public Entities involved in the case including Salina City Commissioners, Salina USD 305 School Board members, Salina Airport Authority Board members, and representatives of Kansas State University.

A brief overview of the groundwater contamination project will be provided by Tim Rogers, Salina Airport Authority Executive Director.

A review of a Consent Decree and the Environmental Project Management Agreement will take place. The Consent Decree settles claims involving responsibility for environmental response actions and costs at the site of the former Schilling Air Force Base.

Each of the Entities will then consider a motion approving the proposed Consent Decree and authorize their respective designee to sign the document on their behalf.

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.