AU Won't Attend Public Meetings with Banned Elected Official

Andrew Huff, a community relations official with [American University], told D.C. police that Kent Slowinski, an elected member of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3D, punched him in the shoulder with a closed fist, hard enough for him to stumble.  Though Slowinski's name is not on the public portion of the police report, he freely admitted in an interview to throwing at least one hard punch - but, he said, only after Huff rudely interrupted him as he chatted with a constituent.  Slowinski said Huff stuck his hand out, hoping for a handshake; the commissioner said he tried to walk way, and then Huff pushed him.  

"He filed a police report, really?"  Slowinski said.  "I felt threatened.  I wasn't going to shake his hand.  I was walking away and he pushed me.  I said, 'That's assault,' and so I punched him in the arm."
  
... Slowinski said Huff has a habit of "rolling his eyes" during meetings and cutting him and others off when they challenge campus dogma ... Slowinski said he wanted to discuss other, more unusual community concerns: buried chemical weapons from World War I and whether any might be leaking into a parking lot along a residential street.  Land in the Spring Valley neighborhood that is now part of the university was an old U.S. Army munitions testing site and dumping ground.
Peter Hermann
Washington Post
June 12, 2014

In response to the incident, the university banned Slowinski from its campus and property. Furthermore, the university’s Linda Argo wrote in a letter to the  neighborhood commission: “American University will not participate in any ANC meeting until adequate assurance is provided that Mr. Slowinski will not be present.” ... Commissioner Tom Smith, an outspoken critic of many of the university's development plans, said in an email that he has found Huff to be sometimes rude and threatening at past community meetings and personally refuses to attend meetings in which Huff is the only university representative present ... Last week's incident is Slowinski's second police matter in recent months regarding the munitions issue.  According to a Metropolitan Police Department report, an officer stopped him in September 2013 for trespassing while taking pictures. 

Brady Holt

Northwest Current

June 18, 2014

3 Spring Valley Areas Will Undergo New Health Risk Assessment

Site-Wide Risk Assessment (pg. 9)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to find numerous potentially harmful chemicals in the soil of American University’s campus near Kreeger and Watkins halls, officials reported last week.  Speaking at the May 13 meeting of the Restoration Advisory Board, Army officials identified the chemicals as antimony, cobalt and a group of three polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.  The contamination on the campus and in nearby Spring Valley homes stems from the Army’s chemical munitions testing carried out at American during World War I.  The Army Corps has spent $240 million cleaning up the area over the last 21 years ... In the residential areas of Spring Valley, the level of cobalt in the soil around the corner of Tilden Street and Fordham Road is high enough to raise concern.  Until recently the cobalt readings would not have been an issue, but the Environmental Protection Agency has lowered the toxicity threshold for the chemical based on recent research ...

Groundwater Perchlorate at Kreeger Hall (pg.20)

The Army has also been continuing to test the groundwater in Spring Valley and on the American University campus ... [Project Manager] Dan Noble told board members that eventually the Army would probably try to clean up any dangerous groundwater ... Added Steve Hirsh of the EPA: “If you were drinking it, it would have to be fixed right away, but you’re not” ...  Hirsh said the Army has tried unsuccessfully over the years to find a heavy concentration of perchlorate that could be affecting the groundwater.

Northwest Current

May 21, 2014

  

 Groundwater Arsenic at 4820 Glenbrook Road (pg. 16)

Army Reevaluates Its Refusal to Relocate Glenbrook Road Family

Following a question from Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, highlighting that more hazardous materials have been found at [4825 Glenbrook Road] a particularly contaminated property where the Army Corps has demolished a home and is excavating, the Army Corps agreed to reevaluate their prior refusal to cover the cost of relocating a family in Spring Valley who lives directly across the street from the property, has small children and rented an apartment on top of their mortgage in order to avoid the contamination ...
    

Last year, Norton wrote a letter to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick, urging him to temporarily relocate the family in Spring Valley because they have very young children, ages 2 and 6, living directly across the street from property where the Army Corps has demolished a home and is excavating ... Now, because of the amount of additional hazardous material found, the project’s projected completion date has been pushed back six months, from December 2014 to June 2015.  Meanwhile, no action has been taken by the Army Corps to relocate the family.
Eleanor Holmes Norton
DC Congresswoman
April 2, 2014

Residents Try to Spare Pocket Park from Groundwater Well Drilling

As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers investigates possible chemical contamination in Spring Valley’s groundwater, some residents are concerned about damage to a tiny park in the median of Rockwood Parkway ...  the Army has been trying to track the underground spread of the chemical perchlorate.  The Army has identified the park as the best location for a new groundwater monitoring well — joining 53 already installed in the area — which will identify whether contamination has spread into this section of the neighborhood ... 

Rockwood Parkway pocket park

[Spring Valley advisory neighborhood commissioner] Nan Wells said at the neighborhood commission’s March 5 meeting: “I think the Army needs to take another look at this and work with us, and preserve this beautiful park” ...  The neighborhood commission voted unanimously to ask the Army to find another site ... In an interview this week, Wells said some neighbors may organize a protest at the park if well-drilling does commence there.  In response to a neighborhood rumor that the Army was threatening to arrest demonstrators, [army spokesperson Andrea] Takash said, “No, no, that’s free speech.”
Brady Holt
Northwest Current
March 26, 2014

As part of the ongoing groundwater investigation ... USACE met with residents, ANC commissioners, RAB members and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on April 29 to discuss locations for the proposed well in the vicinity of Rockwood Parkway.  Based on this meeting, USACE is looking for another area in public space on Rockwood Parkway or Indian Lane, other than the Rockwood Parkway Island.
Spring Valley FUDS
Project Update
April 2014

Completion of Glenbrook Road Project Slips to Summer 2015

This month the crews continued hand excavating the area under the former front porch of the home [at 4825 Glenbrook Road] down to saprolite.  They continued to recover American University Experiment Station (AUES)-related debris. Additionally, they demolished about a 10-foot section of the porch footer wall.  Due to the debris we have encountered under the former front porch (hand excavation is a slow process) and days lost due to the recent winter weather, we have had to revise our schedule for Glenbrook Road.  

     4825 Glenbrook Road (2/13/14)

We now expect to finish excavation work in spring of 2015 and restore the site to residential standards before returning the property back to American University in summer 2015.  This schedule could change, either direction, depending on what we encounter during the continued excavation work.  At the March 11 RAB meeting we will provide more details and video footage of the current work.
Spring Valley FUDS
Project Update
February 2014

Precise Source of Lewisite in Soil Under Front Porch is Unknown

The analytical results for the liquid in the intact container discovered on Jan. 17 tested positive for lewisite.  The bottom layer of liquid in the bottle contained a small amount of lewisite ... There was no release of lewisite during the discovery or removal of the item.  With the results of the testing complete, the container will be properly disposed of by the Edgewood Chemical Transfer Facility.
Spring Valley FUDS
4825 Glenbrook Road Update
January 31, 2014 

 AUES bottle containing Lewisite

Until recently, the soil samples have been non-detect for chemical agents or industrial compounds.  A report received Jan. 31 showed that recently excavated soil tested positive for lewisite.  This soil came from the area around the location where we discovered the Jan. 17 intact glass bottle that also contained lewisite.  The soils currently being excavated are 6-8 feet below ground surface.
Spring Valley FUDS
4825 Glenbrook Road Update
February 7, 2014
  

Army spokesperson Andrea Takash said the container found was not leaking and that she could not speculate on the source of the lewisite found in the soil.  Workers have removed countless pieces of glassware from the site.  The burial pit is believed to have been disturbed when the home at 4825 Glenbrook was constructed in the early 1990s, and construction workers building the house reportedly suffered injuries consistent with chemical weapons exposure.  Residents of the house also reported illnesses before moving out in 2001; the home was subsequently left vacant before it was demolished. 

     
At their meeting last Wednesday, several members of the Palisades/Spring Valley advisory neighborhood commission expressed concerns about the Army’s findings.  “Lewisite is nothing to fool around with.  It’s a very serious thing,” said commissioner Tom Smith, whose single-member district includes 4825 Glenbrook.  Smith said he was also worried that lewisite may have also contaminated neighboring properties — the American University president’s house and the South Korean ambassador’s residence.

Brady Holt

Northwest Current

February 12, 2014 (pg. 5)

Longtime Resident Geza Teleki was Fierce Critic of Corps' Cleanup

We write to honor the life of Geza Teleki.  After a long battle with many health issues, Geza passed away on January 7, 2014, in his home on Szentendre Island, Hungary.  He lived in Spring Valley from 1984 to 2003 at 3819 48th Street.  We remember Geza for his deep concern over the cleanup and wellbeing of Spring Valley.  He fought for a more thorough and transparent investigation into the buried munitions and chemical remains resulting from the World War I chemical weapons development and testing at the American University Experimental Station and neighboring properties.  Geza eloquently spoke of these concerns while serving on the Spring Valley Restoration Advisory Board from its inception until he resigned in 2002.  
Ginny Durrin & Ken Shuster
Northwest Current
January 29, 2014 (pg. 11)

Dr. Virginia Marie Weaver, an occupational health specialist at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, reported in a five-page clinic note last January that her patient,  Geza Teleki, represented a puzzle for any health professional.  Teleki, who in 2003 moved to Maryland after living in his family home on the 3800 block of 48th Street in Spring Valley for more than 30 years, suffers from diabetes, hypothyroidism, advancing kidney disease, colon disease and a heart ailment that may require surgery.  This multi-organ breakdown occurred in a two-year period after more than a decade of robust good health ... 

  Geza P. Teleki testifies at DC City Council hearing

 Weaver wrote that her patient "could have had exposure to volatile chemicals from soil evaporation or water leaking into his basement.  He could have had exposure to particulates and metals through gardening.  The extent of the exposure remains unknown due to the absence of extensive sampling during the time he was in the home."  She further wrote that the nature of the chemicals still in the ground "is unclear since they were experimental -- and the byproducts that could have formed over the 80 years are even more unclear." 
Charles Bermpohl
Northwest Current
November 10, 2004 (pg. B-3)

Nevermore, I realized as I hastened homeward to my own bed ... would I regard chimpanzees as "mere animals."  On that singular eve, which also marked the twilight of my youth, I had seen my species inside the skin of another ... Having spent some years in the company of chimpanzees, both free and confined individuals, I find myself no longer able to cleave to the majority human view of chimpanzees as inferior beings.  
Geza P. Teleki
They Are Us (1993)