[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15147-15148]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  TAKING ANOTHER LOOK AT SPRING VALLEY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this morning's editorial in the 
Washington Post calls for a second look at Spring Valley. This is the 
area in an exclusive residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., 
immediately adjacent to the American University campus, that was 83 
years ago the site of American chemical weapons testing and production 
during World War I. It is one of over 1,000 sites across America where 
we have unexploded ordnance, military toxins, environmental waste left 
from the past.
  I could not agree more with the Washington Post that it is time for a 
second look at what is happening in Spring Valley.
  Last spring, the gentlewoman from Washington, D.C., (Ms. Norton) and 
I led a group of media and concerned citizens to visit the site where 
we have saw the areas of the concentration of arsenic, the vacant child 
care center that had many, many times the level of recommended 
contaminants before it was vacated, that now stands empty where just a 
few months ago there were young children.
  Or looking at the back yard of the Korean Ambassador that is all 
scratched away where they are trying even now after the second cleanup 
to finish the job.
  Yes, it is time for a second look at the Spring Valley situation to 
see what happened, who knew the information, to see if people were 
adequately warned of the dangers. But I think there is a much larger 
issue here than the management of the Spring Valley site.
  As I mentioned, this is one of over 1,000 sites across the country. 
Indeed, it is hard to find a congressional district that does not have 
at least one of these situations that is there dealing with a potential 
threat to the local environment.
  It is important that Congress not be missing in action with the issue 
of unexploded ordnance, which has claimed 65 lives that we have known 
of, perhaps more, where we have no real understanding of how many 
thousands, how many hundreds of thousands indeed. Indeed, the estimates 
are that it could be as many as 50 million acres that are contaminated.
  Until Congress gets on top of this issue, I fear that we are going to 
be putting the Department of Defense in a situation where, with an 
inadequate budget, they are given no choice but to go from hot spot to 
hot spot, from the focus of emergency from the media, political 
pressure or some other contingency forces their attention.
  A much better approach is for us to take a comprehensive look. I 
would suggest that my colleagues join me in cosponsoring H.R. 2605, the 
Ordnance and Explosive Risk Management Act that calls for the 
identification of a single person who is in charge. Right now there is 
not a single point of contact.
  It calls for increased work in terms of research so that we know how 
best to clean up these sites, that we do a comprehensive inventory so 
at least we know how big the problem is. Of course, we all need to make 
sure that we are adequately funding this problem.
  People who followed this in the news noticed that American University 
has filed suit against the United States Government for almost $100 
million in damages.

[[Page 15148]]

  Ultimately, we were responsible for cleaning up after ourselves in 
terms of Federal Government. Those of us who care about promoting 
livable communities that make our families safe, healthy and 
economically secure and who believe that the single most powerful tool 
available to us is not new fees, new laws, new requirements, but rather 
the Federal Government led by this bill, modeling the behavior that we 
expect of other Americans whether they are families, businesses or 
local government.
  We have an opportunity to do that right now in moving forward with 
legislation, with adequate funding to make sure that the toxic legacy 
of over a century of unexploded ordnance and environmental degradation 
is taken care of, is addressed, that we do clean up after ourselves.
  Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues join me in support of H.R. 
2605 and that we urge our colleagues on the Committee on Appropriations 
and the Armed Services Committee to make sure we are all doing our job, 
making the framework so that Congress is no longer missing in action on 
the issue of unexploded ordnance.

                          ____________________