Seventy-Year Spring Valley AUES Coverup Blown on January 5, 1993

1918: AUES northern trench system (aka, 52nd Court)

World War I munitions were found buried in a neighborhood bordering American University ... by the W.C. & Miller Development Co. on Jan. 5 while working at 511 52nd Court, AU media relations director David Taylor said ... "Residents living within 300 feet of the munitions site were forced to evacuate their homes immediately after the discovery, on the off-chance one of the explosives would detonate," Taylor said ... "This isn't an odd situation at all ... It's probably an isolated site that was missed during the Army cleanup after World War I," he said.

The Eagle
January 18, 1993: pg. 5

1993: 52nd Court in northwest Washington, DC

"Based on their involvement in the chemical weapons program conducted at AU, both the United States and AU had sufficient knowledge of the presence of contamination to require that the Spring Valley site be identified to EPA ... There is no excuse for their failure to file the required report in 1986 when both AU and the United States received information from the analysis of aerial photography and a search of the records that contamination was likely present in Spring Valley. It appears that, in 1986, the United States and American University jointly decided to ignore the contamination and the potential harm it was causing instead of making the required Superfund report."
William C. Harrop, President
Spring Valley - Wesley Heights Citizens Association
 
DC Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Reform

July 27, 2001 (pg. 32)