EPA Admits It Cannot Enforce Provisions of Executive Order

EPA recognizes the entirely understandable concern that your clients and their parents have regarding USACE's cleanup work so close to their home.  However, for reasons detailed below, EPA does not believe that the actions you have requested are appropriate or necessary at this time ... EPA's CERCLA guidance for assessing risks and conducting cleanups, which governs USACE's work at the Spring Valley site, recognizes that children (as well as health-compromised adults) may be more sensitive to environmental exposures than the general public.  However, while Executive Order 13045 imposes certain obligations upon federal agencies, including EPA and USACE, it does not confer an authority on EPA to enforce its provisions against other federal agencies.
 

... The USACE has also instituted an additional layer of protection for nearby residents which assumes the extremely unlikely event that a MCE [maximum credible event] has occurred and that the containment system has catastrophically failed such that the air blowers are unable to capture the contamination, resulting in the release of chemical to air outside the structure.  Based on this hypothetical scenario, the USACE calculated a perimeter within which a voluntary shelter-in-place program would be established ... In this unlikely event, the community members with the potentially affected area would be notified through pre-arranged methods and instructed to shelter in place.
Kathyrn A. Hodgkiss

Hazardous Site Cleanup Division (EPA Region III)

March 28, 2013

 

Shelter-In-Place Zones (pg. A-1)

Congresswoman Norton Says Corps May Be Violating Executive Order

The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today released Norton’s letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin in support of a petition urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to temporarily relocate a family in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. because they have young children, ages one and five, living directly across the street from a property where the Army Corps has demolished a home and is beginning to excavate for potentially hazardous substances.  Excavation is necessary because of a 2011 Army Corps remediation investigation report that indicated that chemical weapons-related debris are likely buried under the house at 4825 Glenbrook Road. 

In her letter, Norton expressed her disappointment in the Army Corps’ rejection of the family’s request, and subsequent appeal, for relocation during the excavation, and in the Army Corps’ explanation that it could not differentiate between very young children and adults living in the affected area.  “For the reasons stated in the petition, I found this conclusion to be uninformed and inconsistent with widely available scientific data,” wrote Norton ... Norton also wrote that the Army Corps may be in violation of an executive order that requires all federal agencies to “make it a high priority to identify and assess environmental health risks and safety risks that may disproportionately affect children.”

Eleanor Holmes Norton

DC Congresswoman

March 8, 2013

University Waiting to Tell Campus About Shelter-In-Place Protocols

While the Army Corps of Engineers has already informed residents on Glenbrook Road of emergency shelter procedures, AU will not brief the community on an emergency plan until April, according to Assistant Vice President for Communication and Media Camille Lepre.  Starting in May, the Corps expects to find more debris from the former WWI-era munitions site at 4825 Glenbrook Road.  The Corps will enclose the area and use an air monitoring system ... Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Andrea Takash said the Corps has briefed AU’s administration on the public protection plan, but when to communicate the plan to the AU community is the University’s decision ...

Public address speakers and strobe lights will be used to alert the community in the event of an emergency during high-probability work, according to the Corps.  Sirens and speaker systems will also be placed at the Watkins and Kreeger buildings, Takash said.  A map indicating the residences within the “shelter-in-place” zone during “high-probability” work includes Watkins and AU President Neil Kerwin’s home.  Shelter-in-place procedures instruct residents to take cover wherever they are in the case of an emergency at the site ... The Army Corps has conducted other “low-probability” investigations in recent years at the AU Experiment Station (AUES) site that have revealed debris and munitions.  During an operation next to the Public Safety building in 2010, Army Corps workers unearthed a 75 mm artillery piece buried under the building’s lower entrance
Leigh Giangreco

The Eagle

March 6, 2013 (pg. 6)

Pentagon Worried about Setting Precedent if It Okays Relocation

Christine Dieterich said she contacted the Corps, and was assured that soil testing on her property had come back negative, that the cleanup was slowly coming to an end, and that there was no risk to her family.  "Famous last words," she said, in a phone interview last week ... "They reassessed," she said, "and eventually determined to demolish the house.  We told the Corps, 'Fine, clean up the property, we would like to relocate,'" she continued.  That was in early 2012, and she said the initial response was "quite positive," with Corps aides looking at houses for the family.  "Then hardliners at the Corps took over," she said, and after three rounds of appeals, the relocation request was rejected last week.  "These people take forever for everything, and they never admit a mistake." 
    

The family is not banking on a positive response from the Environmental Protection Agency.  "We're now considering legal options," [Dieterich said] ... "If they do something for Christine's kids, it's a slippery slope for them," [Attorney Buzz] Bailey said.  "The Pentagon won't do the right thing because they're concerned about precedent."
Elizabeth Wiener

Northwest Current

February 27, 2013 (pg. 1)

The Toxic-Waste Pit Next Door

The best attempt at providing answers came from a 2004 survey of a 345-house epicenter of Spring Valley by Charles Bermpohl, a staff writer for the Northwest Current, a weekly paper that covers Spring Valley.  Bermpohl found 160 cases of chronic, often life-threatening and rare diseases.  Bermpohl's research found an alarming number of diseases, but experts have criticized the findings as anecdotal and unscientific ... Camille Saum had grown up on Sedgwick Street and lived there from 1947 to 1964 ... "Three-quarters of the homes in our part of the neighborhood had serious illnesses," says Beth Junium, Saum's sister ... Junium counts the houses with cancer -- "bad cancers, they all died" -- and stops at seven.  "I had an enormous growth on my thyroid," she says. 
   

... Camille Saum was eventually diagnosed with lupus and renal stenosis, a rare kidney disease that constricts the blood vessels.  "I was examined by a doctor for NIH who told me my conditions could have been caused by arsenic poisoning," she said.

Harry Jaffe

Washingtonian

March 2013 (pgs. 56-63)

Army's Refusal to Relocate Family of Four Shocks Congresswoman

DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton's letter ... expresses “shock” that the Corps would excavate a home site within yards of the home where Rogerio Zandamela and Christine Dieterich are raising their children, ages 1 and 5.  The Corps expects to unearth toxic chemicals in glassware and munitions contaminated with toxic agents such as mustard gas that were used in World War I, when the American University campus was an experiment station for poisonous chemical weapons.  Harold G. “Buzz” Bailey, an attorney who represents the family, last week petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to relocate them under the Superfund Act ... The full story of the Spring Valley chemical-weapons testing and the plight of the Dieterich family is the subject of a feature in the March issue of Washingtonian.
Harry Jaffe
Washingtonian
February 21, 2013

Since 2000, the Army Corps has removed over 500 munitions, 400 pounds of laboratory glassware and over 100 tons of soil contaminated with arsenic and other hazardous substances from 4825 Glenbrook Road and the immediate area.  Despite this and the very real possibility that hazardous substances remain, the Army Corps decided to reject the family’s request for relocation during the remainder of the Army Corps’ work at 4825 Glenbrook Road ...

   

We also know that the Army Corps’ relationship with the Spring Valley community is fragile, that the cost of relocating this family is small compared to the overall cost of this years-long project, and Army Corps risks serious negative publicity by denying this request.  Given these facts, I find it unreasonable that the Army Corps would opt to deny the relocation request.  In light of the scientific evidence available to the Army Corps and to the general public, I believe that the only prudent decision is to relocate the family.

Eleanor Holmes Norton
DC Congresswoman
February 21, 2013

   

EPA Petition Alleges "Imminent & Substantial" Danger to Health

On behalf of two young children residing at 4830 Glenbrook Road, Luisa Z., 22 months old, and Lucas Z., 5 years and 10 months old ... I am urgently seeking your personal attention to address an imminent danger to these Children in the Spring Valley community of Washington DC.  I request that you review and grant the Children's petition under RCRA Sec. 7003 that USEPA: (1) investigate and determine whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has violated Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks, and (2) act immediately to order the relocation of the Children while USACE excavates for chemical weapon materials (CWM) and explosives less than 15 yards from where the Children live and play ...
  

Executive Order 13045, Attachment 4, states:
"A growing body of scientific knowledge demonstrates that children may suffer disproportionately from environmental health and safety risks ... each federal agency (a) shall make it a high priority to identify and assess environmental health risk and safety risks that may disproportionately affect children; and (b) shall insure that its policies, programs, activities, and standards address disproportionate risks to children that result from environmental health risks or safety risks. "  

The above-noted deficiencies of the USACE HHRA and MEC HA constitute a clear violation of the words and intent of E.O. 13045.  I request that (a) USEPA initiate a prompt investigation of how and why the special CWM risks to the Children have not been adequately assessed by USACE, and (b) USEPA use its authorities under Section 7003 to issue an Administrative Order requiring USACE to undertake and complete a new CWM exposure hazard assessment specific to the Children.

Harold G. Bailey, Jr.

Garvey Schubert Barer

February 20, 2013

After exploring the facts concerning the appeal, members of the RAB voted to express sympathy for your situation and to encourage the USACE to meet with you and your husband for the express purpose of providing a resolution satisfactory to your concerns and fears regarding the demolition of the house at 4825 Glenbrook Road and subsequent remedial work ...

At the public RAB meeting for September, all community members who spoke were in favor of a resolution that would remove your children from the area during the remedial response.  Speakers included the local elementary school principal who was concerned about the safety of her students that would be passing the site daily traveling to and from school ...The USACE has been actively working with the community to build a relationship based on trust.  Relations with the community have dramatically improved in recent years.  This strong community relationship appears to be in jeopardy.  There is clearly strong community support for your position in this matter, and it would be in the best interest of the USACE to resolve this matter.

Gregory A. Buemel, Co-Chair

Spring Valley RAB

September 23, 2012  

New Web Site Requires Login to Access Spring Valley FUDS Archive

The USACE-Spring Valley FUDS Web site is changing. The change is part of the Corps of Engineers' nationwide-effort to establish a consistent look on all district Web sites. Starting tonight at 6 p.m., the new link for the USACE Spring Valley FUDS Project home page will be: http://www.nab.usace.army.mil/Home/SpringValley.aspx 

 

You will be able to find any new and recent documents, along with most of the project documents you are used to seeing on this new Web site.  However, the majority of the older project documents have been moved to a SharePoint site.  If you would like access to the SharePoint site, please email Andrea Takash, Baltimore District Corps of Engineers Public Affairs, to request a username and password at andrea.m.takash@usace.army.mil.  Andrea also can be reached at 410-962-2626. If you have any questions about the Web site please don't hesitate to contact Andrea directly.
Carrie Johnston & Rebecca Yahiel 
Community Outreach Team 
February 1, 2013