Angry Construction Workers Stir Up May Advisory Board Meeting

Two workers from the 1990’s residential construction effort at both 4825 and 4835 Glenbrook Road attended this week’s Restoration Advisory Board meeting.  After the meeting, the workers who had travelled from West Virginia and the project team had a long, productive conversation.  We immediately sent them last year’s ATSDR Health Consultation report and ATSDR contact information so they could discuss their health concerns.  We again invited the workers to tour the project site and adjacent property at 4835 Glenbrook Road, to share their recollections from initial construction.  We are coordinating the logistics for this site visit soon.  At the request of the RAB, we will present an update on our ongoing dialogue with the workers and their upcoming site visit at the next RAB meeting, scheduled for Tuesday evening July 11.  The workers were also invited to return to a future RAB meeting to share their recollections from the construction of the two properties.
Spring Valley FUDS
RAB Meeting Update
May 12, 2017


Worker #1:  I know more than y'all have ever said or put out to the public.  You sugar-coat and coverup so much.  You only put out what you think people want to hear ... I have proof beyond a shadow of doubt of what came off of 4835.

Brenda Barber:  We'd be more than happy to discuss that with you.  We don't have access to Mr. Brandt's payroll.  We've been trying to gain access to that ...
 
Worker #1:  Once this first started and it went through Lawrence Brandt and the people who bought the house originally — once you found out there was really a lot of [chemical] agents and problems there — all of the employees should have been the first people to be notified and taken care of.  You're not the one who has health issues.  You're not the one who suffers and neither are the rest of these people sitting here ... Lawrence Brandt, American University and the government have literally shafted us ... I was at a [RAB] meeting one year ago across New Mexico Avenue in that church basement.  I talked to the RAB after that meeting — again, she waited until late October, the first of November and then pushed it off.  I had no way to contact her; she never called me.  She was supposed to have set up a meeting "within the next few weeks" ...

Worker #2:  You were talking about going two feet past the [4825] property line or however far over ... When you're being told by people that worked there — that built it — that it's under the house.  There's as much, if not more, under 4835 than 4825.

Barber:  And as I was trying to say earlier: there’s no physical way — without removing the house — for me to go under the house and do any type of investigative effort …
 
Worker #2:  If I set a bottle on the table that came out from under 4835, will you look at it? ...  Keith Powell gave me permission to remove the bottle.  I took it home with me.  I've got it under lock and key ... And that's just one bottle out of the thousands that were crushed. 
Spring Valley FUDS
RAB Meeting Minutes 
May 9, 2017 (pg. 11 - 14)