"The Chemists' War" Came to an End One Hundred Years Ago Today

Soldiers test gas masks at AUES “man-test” lab (NARA)

Entering the [World War I] fray two years after Germany sparked the chemical arms race with a surprise chlorine gas attack in Flanders, Belgium, the United States Army had neither gas masks nor protective gear, and no capacity for producing or deploying chemical weapons ...  To correct those deficiencies, the War Department set up a laboratory, initially under the civilian Bureau of Mines, called the American University Experiment Station. It began modestly with one building and fewer than 100 researchers.  By the war’s end, almost 2,000 soldiers, scientists and civilians worked at the campus, which soldiers called “Mustard Hill” for the blister agent sulfur mustard.    

 Test trenches were filled in & land sold to developers (NARA)

The army leased nearby farmland for proving grounds, part of which the soldiers named “Death Valley” ... When the war ended, the scientists revealed they had developed a new weapon called lewisite, an arsenic-based blister agent ... Over the decades, developers turned surrounding land into an affluent residential neighborhood, transforming “Death Valley” into Spring Valley, in the northern section of the District of Columbia.  The WWI legacy was largely forgotten until 1993, when developers dug up a cache of mortars, triggering a state of emergency, evacuations and a lengthy cleanup.  In all, 141 munitions were found at that site ... 

 Gas tested on animals in concrete bunkers (Magnum/NYT)

Hundreds of munitions have been hauled away, most of them from a handful of burial pits.  Arsenic has been the most widespread chemical contaminant — the army has carted off thousands of tons of tainted soil and replaced it with clean topsoil.  Sulfur mustard, lewisite and other chemical warfare compounds — as well as traces of the constituent chemicals that remain after the warfare agents break down over time — have also been detected and removed.  Concerns about the health effects of chemical contamination among Spring Valley’s roughly 25,000 residents have long lingered over the cleanup, especially after a lengthy neighborhood newspaper investigation reported unusual illnesses and health problems among residents.
Theo Emery
New York Times
November 11, 2018