East Campus Construction Starts Despite Concern over Chemicals

Over the past few months, crews have been preparing the Nebraska Avenue parking lot for construction activities that will commence this week as part of AU’s East Campus development at New Mexico and Nebraska Avenues ... A field office has been built for the on-site project team, erosion control measures have been installed to mitigate the impact of storm water runoff outside the perimeter of the site, and the necessary permits have been acquired to begin construction.  With this enabling work completed, construction is now under way.
AU in the Neighborhood
September 2014

 Nebraska Avenue parking lot (pg. 28) 

Excavation and building permits for the East Campus project at the site of the school’s Nebraska Avenue parking lot are on hold pending sign-off from the D.C. Department of the Environment ...  Some neighbors and community leaders are pushing for more intensive review of possible contamination at the site due to the university’s World War I history, which has cost some $250 million in cleanup over the last two decades.  The parking lot site was never used for the same Army chemical munitions testing ...  but advisory neighborhood commissioner Kent Slowinski worries that soil could have been taken there from toxic areas.  

 

1918 aerial & AOI 20

“If they moved contaminated soil to the site from another property, you could expect to find the same chemicals,” Slowinski said ... A former owner of the parking lot site had leased other land to the Army, Slowinski said, making it possible that dirt could have been moved around.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said that mercury has not been a widespread contaminant associated with the American University Experiment Station ...  Slowinski, meanwhile, points to a 1922 aerial photo showing ground scars on the property that he says point to disturbances, and neighbors note that mercury has been found in soil (though not groundwater) on the university campus.

Brady Holt 

Northwest Current 

August 27, 2014

2009 trenching over 1922 ground scars

The Area of Interest (AOI) 20 report is based on a 1922 aerial photograph that shows a series of linear ground scars.  AOI 20 is located outside the Formerly Used Defense Site boundary ... There is no historical evidence this parcel of land was ever used by AUES or Camp Leach.  Three trenches (each approximately 50 feet long) were dug through six of the land scars.  No AUES material was observed and no soil staining ... All soil appeared to be native undisturbed soil.
Dan Noble, Project Manager
Spring Valley FUDS
June 5, 2014

Glenbrook Neighbors Incensed by Latest Cleanup Schedule Delay

The Army Corps of Engineers could take until the spring of 2017 to finish cleaning up 4825 Glenbrook Road, followed by several more months of full restoration, officials said last week.  The Spring Valley property has extensive contamination of World War I-era munitions from the adjacent American University Experiment Station.  The total cost of cleaning up the property is estimated at over $56 million .... The Army originally intended to clean the property down to bedrock, but workers are now finding contamination two feet into the bedrock itself. As a result, two more feet of weathered rock will be dug up and tested.

 4825 Glenbrook Road foundation demolished (USACE)

Glenbrook Road neighbor Jill Stern criticized the decision to prolong the work at 4825, saying the project has been a serious inconvenience and is making her home impossible to sell .... The Army tore down the house at 4825 Glenbrook in fall 2012 to remove the contaminated soil from the property.  Working under the protective tent, the Army excavates a defined area before relocating the tent to another part of the property.

Northwest Current

July 23, 2014 (pg. 3)

Jill Stern:  [37:54] I've really lost confidence that you have control of the schedule here.  It's been extended so many times.  Three years from now, you're going to come back and say you need another three years.  I've just never seen such a lack of accountability ... They should be pushed to explore some other alternatives, rather than just say it's going to be another three years ... I just don't understand why this Board is not pushing back at all ... [54:48] The reason I thought it was better to talk about this at the RAB was because it was an open forum and I thought this Board was actually being more questioning than it appears to be.

Spring Valley RAB Meeting

July 15, 2014

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