High Probability Dig Resumes after Clearing 3½-Year CERCLA Hurdle

A crucial and potentially risky step in the cleanup of a former chemical weapons dumping site near American University begins Monday.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says there is "high probability" they will discover more debris at the former American University Experiment Station, where the Army tested chemical weapons during World War I ...Previous digging and research indicates the likely presence of mustard gas and lewisite -- an arsenic-containing blister agent -- under the former home.  

"The reason we decided to remove the house is we did see scattered debris around the property and we do have some concerns that there may be additional debris underneath the foundation and the floor of the home," says [project manager] Brenda Barber ... With near-real-time air monitoring for chemical agents and industrial compounds, Barber says preparations have been made to ensure the neighborhood is safe.  "If there is a release under the engineering control structure it will be confined to the treatment system, and there will be no release to the public" says Barber.
Neal Augenstein
WTOP-FM
September 20, 2013  

For more than 20 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been conducting clean-up operations to remove World War I materiel discovered at various locations on or near the American University main campus and throughout the Spring Valley neighborhood ... On September 23, 2013, the Army Corps is scheduled to resume excavation activities along Glenbrook Road, which parallels the southern border of AU’s campus, as designated on the attached map.  The Army Corps has conducted work on that site (4825 Glenbrook Road) for the past 10 years ...

The area of primary focus for the dedicated safety measures on the AU campus is the southwest corner of campus including the Watkins Building and the edge of the Jacobs Field.  The Army Corps has deployed an emergency notification system, which includes sirens, strobe lights, and an automated telephone/email notification system.   This system will be tested on a monthly basis, on the first Wednesday of each month at 4:05 p.m.
David Taylor, President’s Chief of Staff
Army Corps of Engineers Resumption of Activities
September 18, 2013

Spring Valley Health Studies Deemed "Inconclusive by Design"

In his Aug. 14 letter to the editor, Malcolm Pritzker quarrels with The Current’s Aug. 7 editorial, which criticized the recently completed Johns Hopkins School of Public Health community health study because it “failed to scratch the surface” of a “host of rare health problems among Spring Valley residents” ... Hopkins’ convenient reliance on the [D.C. Cancer] Registry means the study ignored all non-cancer cases such as immune deficiency, autoimmune disorders and blood disorders (including aplastic anemia, pernicious anemia and multiple myeloma); ignored all cases from the 65 years prior to the registry; and ignored clusters of rare diseases that struck residents living on the same properties over a period of time ...

What went wrong?  In short, if you forget that your mission is to protect against further illness, don’t be surprised if you draft an incomplete statement of work, select the wrong contractor and obtain a useless result.  Weak contract management, with no requirement for in-progress reports and no review process, can only make matters worse.
Kent Slowinski
Northwest Current
September 11, 2013 (pg. 9)

Two federal agencies, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ADSTR), bear the primary responsibility for safeguarding the nation's environmental health ... Both of these agencies have routinely funded and conducted studies of effects of toxic pollution on public health which are inconclusive by design.  These intentionally inconclusive studies have been used by polluters and government officials to mislead citizens into believing that further measures to prevent toxic exposures are unnecessary.
Inconclusive by Design
Russell, Lewis & Keating
May 1992

I wrote to Hopkins several times offering to provide a list of folks from that period who lived on Rockwood Parkway, Glenbrook Road, Indian Lane, Quebec Street, 49th Street, et cetera for follow-up.  I got one response to the three letters I sent, promising to contact me in “the future.”  I’m still waiting ... the children who grew up in Spring Valley and who spent many hours playing in those woods and around those bunkers, as my brother and I and our friends did, should have been looked at ...  Many of us have died; I have no sense of whether the numbers or the causes are anomalous, but we’ll never know.  Nobody asked for the information.
Patricia Meyers
Northwest Current
September 18, 2013 (pg. 10)

Army Corps Tests Readiness in Drill with Local Emergency Responders

 Project Mgr. Brenda Barber briefs AU Pres. Neil Kerwin

The team was inspected by the Huntsville District to assess their readiness to begin work.  During the inspection, the teams ran various scenarios to train for the upcoming high probability operations.  The scenarios allow the teams to prepare for a wide variety of conditions and/or discoveries at the site, such as, a medical emergency, equipment failure, chemical detections, etc.  

Inside the ECS (Engineering Control Structure)

Also, USACE facilitated a Tabletop Exercise with the team and local emergency responders ... During the upcoming week, the teams will continue to train in preparation for high probability.  On Wednesday, September 4th at 4:05 pm, USACE will begin conducting the monthly test of the Shelter in Place notification system.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Glenbrook Road Weekly Update
August 30, 2013

Class-A protective gear

Spring Valley Stakeholders Dispute Conclusions of JHSPH Health Study

A long-awaited community health study has concluded that Spring Valley residents generally enjoy better health than the nation as a whole, but adds that slight upticks in the incidence of certain cancers could be related to arsenic exposure ... Nan Wells, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who has been active on the issue, said she has heard concerns about clusters of diseases among "people who lived on certain properties" where contaminants were buried.   Those families should be tracked, if possible, she said.  And there are still some homeowners who have not allowed the Army onto their properties, including one site that some believe contains a "significant burial pit" ...

 So out of all the thousands [41,000] of people, 865 responded," one audience member countered.  "Nobody got a mailing, nobody went door-to-door.  People without computers were left out, and many diseases were left out.  Isolated seniors who don't have computers wouldn't even know.  I don't think it gives a clear picture of Spring Valley." 

Elizabeth Wiener

Northwest Current 

July 31, 2013 (pg. 1)
  

For decades, Spring Valley residents were unknowingly living above buried chemical weapons, gardening in arsenic-contaminated soil and otherwise facing risks associated with haphazard disposal practices dating back to World War I.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spent millions in the last 20 years on remediation for the community, but evidence suggests that for some residents the damage has been done.  A survey taken by this newspaper in 2004 found a host of rare health problems among Spring Valley residents, potentially attributable to the neighborhood's chemical contamination ... But a new community health study conducted by Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health has failed to scratch the surface.

Editorial

Northwest Current

August 7, 2013 (pg. 8)

Dr. Richard Albright Featured as Guest Writer on UXO News Site

UXOInfo.com welcomes UXO guest author Dr. Richard D. Albright, a local chemical weapons and ordnance expert who holds a Bachelor's from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science in Environmental Health from George Washington University and Doctorate from Wayne State.  A former Army officer, he wrote a science bestseller, Cleanup of Chemical and Explosive Munitions, now in its second edition; as well as two more books on munitions and their constituents: Death of the Chesapeake and Poisoning the World's Women and Infants: The Story of Perchlorate ... 

 

A scuba diver since 1956, Dr. Albright met with the famed Jacques Cousteau on his many trips to the Great Lakes.  It was during these early diving experiences that Albright became aware of underwater ordnance issues ... UXOInfo.com is pleased to introduce Dr. Albright as a guest writer and look forward to a new series of fascinating articles based of his years of UXO experience.

UXOInfo.com

July 26, 2013

 Dr. Richard D. Albright

Johns Hopkins Releases Results from Spring Valley Health Study

The cancer analysis revealed two statistically significant findings; lymphoma incidence rate differences between the study areas and the lung and bronchus mortality rate trend in the Spring Valley area.  Lymphoma incidence in the 2005 - 2009 period was higher in the Spring Valley area than in the Chevy Chase area ... Lung and bronchus mortality rates were lower in both study areas than the US on average; however, the increasing rate trends for lung and bronchus are concerning ...  

Given the significant limitations resulting from lack of exposure data, disease latency, and time lag (approaching 100 years since AUES activities) it is not possible to make a definitive determination of cause and effect for health outcomes observed in surveillance data or reported by residents ... The findings of increasing cancer incidence and mortality trends running counter to US trends raise a general public health concern for both Spring Valley and Chevy Chase areas.

Summary Report

Follow-Up on Spring Valley Health Study

July 3013 (pgs. 12 - 13)

Worker Claims Munition Debris Also Buried Under 4835 Glenbrook

 4835 Glenbrook Road

The Army Corps received a transcript of a March 2013 interview with a construction worker who helped build the houses at 4825 and 4835 Glenbrook Road in 1992.  At the July 9th RAB meeting, project manager Dan Noble reported that the worker saw World War I munitions debris buried underneath both houses (1:32), Brandt Construction tried to move excess soil from this location to a third Spring Valley property but it was refused due to the odor, and the Corps turned the transcript over to its contractor [Watermark, Inc.] who is conducting a Potentially Responsible Party (PRP) investigation.

Noble said that names are mentioned in the transcript (2:39) and the investigator will try to track them down.  Noble admitted that only a single boring in the center of the basement was ever done by the Corps to investigate underneath 4835 Glenbrook Road (10:43). 

Dan Noble, USACE
Spring Valley RAB Meeting 

July 9, 2013 [audio recording]