DC Environmental Film Festival to Feature BOMBS IN OUR BACKYARD

BOMBS IN OUR BACKYARD (Work-in-progress)

With footage dating back to 1993, the film uncovers a large, local U.S. Army cover-up in the Washington D.C. area of Spring Valley, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of the nation’s capital, where a forgotten WW I "Manhattan Project" is being unearthed. This FUDS (or Formerly Used Defense Site) raises questions of public responsibility, health issues and public safety as officials hunt for our own weapons of mass destruction. Directed and produced by Ginny Durrin.

"Shovel-Ready" FUDS Cleanups Seen as Economic Stimulus

QUESTION (9:08): What can the Obama administration do to clean up contamination at Formerly Used Defense Sites, such as Spring Valley, where the cleanup of chemical munitions and weapons of mass destruction is now in its 16th year? At current funding levels of $250 million for more than 9,000 FUDS nationwide, it will take 80 - 160 years to clean up known contamination.

NORTON (15:16): It does seem to me that is quintessentially how this [stimulus] money would be used. If you put money into cleaning up sites like this ... you do what you’re going to have to do anyway and you do it by putting people to work. You put them to work in the short term, since that’s just the kind of work that is already out there "to be done" with not enough people doing it.
Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
WAMU-BBC live simulcast from
American University (1/10/2009)

Army Corps Ally Planted on Cleanup Restoration Advisory Board

Alma Gates, an outgoing Spring Valley-Palisades advisory neighborhood commissioner, took a seat on the advisory board on Nov. 13 after the Army Engineers recommended her. The board serves as a civilian observer of the Army's multiyear cleanup of the chemical munitions buried in the ground during and after World War I, when the area was a military ordnance test site ... [Army Corps Spring Valley project manager Dan] Noble, in an email to [advisory neighborhood commissioner Tom] Smith on Nov. 14, said he was "delighted that Principal Whisenant accepted our recommendation of Alma Gates," whom he called a "steady presence."
Charlie Bermpohl
Northwest Current ~ (December 3, 2008: pg 5)

Perchlorate Problem Proves Persistent near DC Reservoir

More testing for groundwater problems in Northwest Washington neighborhoods where the U.S. Army researched chemical weapons during World War I has found new locations of perchlorate contamination, at some of the highest levels detected to date, according to officials. Undetermined is whether the contamination could end up in the Dalecarlia Reservoir or the Washington Aqueduct, both of which supply drinking water to more than 1 million people in the metropolitan area ... Perchlorate, a compound that was used nine decades ago in tests with mustard agent and screening smokes, can disrupt thyroid function and can contribute to developmental delays and infertility.

Given that two of the wells are just west of major disposal pits, the December findings were not surprising. They showed levels of 60 and 70 parts per billion, which exceed the previous high of 58 parts per billion detected in 2003 on the grounds of Sibley Memorial Hospital and are more than double a federal recommendation for perchlorate cleanup. Much more unexpected, however, was the 48 parts per billion reading from the third well, about 1,000 feet south of Dalecarlia at Loughboro Road and MacArthur Boulevard.

Washington Post
February 18, 2006: pg. B-2

Perchlorate Detections in Groundwater near Pit 3 & Lot 18

As the clock runs out on the Bush administration, officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are trying to hand industry yet another victory by refusing to set safety standards for the toxic rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate ... Based on Centers for Disease Control data, the Environmental Working Group estimated that as many as 44 million women who are pregnant, thyroid deficient or have low iodine levels are at heightened risk of exposure to the chemical.

Other CDC studies have found perchlorate in the urine of every person tested and have discovered that children between 6 and 11 had perchlorate levels 1.6 times higher than adults. These CDC reports have aroused great concern because tests show that the chemical disrupts production of thyroid hormones at these levels, and adequate thyroid hormones are crucial to normal brain development and growth in infants and children.

EWG News Release

November 11, 2008

Perchlorate in Groundwater near Dalecarlia Reservoir

In a letter last week, the heads of EPA's Science Advisory Board and its drinking water committee urged EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson to extend the public comment period on its preliminary determination to not regulate perchlorate. That decision is set to become final next month. Perchlorate, which is present in the water systems of 35 states, accumulates in the body from consuming water, milk, lettuce and other common products and has been linked in scientific studies to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and infants ... "It seemed premature to go ahead and make a decision on perchlorate when they didn't have all the science in," [Advisory Board Chairwoman Deborah] Swackhamer said ... A 2006 CDC study of 1,000 women found that one third had experienced significant changes in thyroid hormone levels at an exposure rate of 7 parts per billion.
Washington Post
November 14, 2008: pg. A-8

Drilling Could Dredge Chemical Weapons from Ocean Floor

A Generation of Indiscriminate Dumping

The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 ton of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels. A Daily Press investigation also found: these weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states - six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska ... The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from World War II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed.

Daily Press
Newport News, Va
October 30, 2005

Excavations Under South Extension Will Begin on October 20th

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has been digging and investigating Pit 3, located in the 4800 block of Glenbrook Road, since Oct. 29, 2007 ... Now we are focusing our attention on an area immediately to the south of the structure, and have built an additional extension on Glenbrook Road towards Rockwood Parkway. This is an area where 19 metallic anomalies, or objects that exhibit irregular magnetic responses below the ground surface, have been identified. These items need to be investigated since they are so close to the original Pit 3 location. Work on the southern extension is expected to begin this month and take about two to four weeks to complete. USACE is very interested in the results of this dig because additional anomalies do extend further down the road."
The Corps'pondent
October 2008 (pg. 1)

Pentagon Accused of Retaliation Over Base Cleanup Requests

Formerly Used Defense Sites

Congress gives the Pentagon about $30 million annually to dispense to states with contaminated military bases, to help pay the states' costs to oversee cleanup of those sites. But in 2006, the Pentagon began telling some states they would no longer receive money for various oversight activities and would lose all of the money if they took enforcement action.
Washington Post ~ (September 19, 2008: pg. A-2)

Testing gas masks at Camp AU (1918) ~ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers