Realtor 'Shocked' by Depressed Prices for Spring Valley Homes

The Army Corps of Engineers has begun efforts to find and clean up potential explosive and chemical hazards on 91 privately owned Spring Valley properties that might be affected by contamination from World War I-era munitions activity ... The Spring Valley cleanup encompasses about 660 acres that were used by the federal government for research and testing of chemical agents, equipment and munitions.  The project began in 1993, when a contractor unearthed buried ordnance.  The Corps is currently focusing on those 91 private properties and 13 lots owned by the federal and District governments ...

Mary Bresnahan, a [Restoration Advisory Board] member and Long & Foster realtor, said some real estate agents simply refuse to deal with Spring Valley properties within the area of concern.  When a realtor does show a property there, Bresnahan said there is a standard warning sheet that must be given to prospective buyers.  Some buyers, she added, often get a property for considerably less than it would be worth in a nearby area.  "I was shocked at a property, that was worth about $1.5 million that sold for $200,000 less," she said.  In recent months, work crews have excavated arsenic contaminated saprolite from the lot at 4825 Glenbrook Road.  That lot, owned by American University, was the site of last summer's worker exposure.  

Public Safety Bldg. before & after demolition (pg. 8)

 The remainder of the work at the site is governed by a plan requiring protective gear and air monitoring.  Work will be performed only when the temperature is under 75 degrees and there will be no hand digging  ...  [Project manager Brenda] Barber said the Corps has excavated soil samples from 12 boreholes through the concrete slab under the foundation of American University's recently demolished Public Safety Building and nothing dangerous was found in the 79 samples.  Once the gas utility line is rerouted, the concrete basement slab will be removed.  The Corps hopes to remove any contaminated soil and backfill the area in December.
Davis Kennedy
Northwest Current
August 7, 2018