[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 16453-16454]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                              GROUND ZERO

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, September 5, 2001

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I commend to the attention of members an 
article from Washingtonian Magazine, December 2001, entitled ``Ground 
Zero.'' Harry Jaffe deserves credit for his early focus on the burial 
of munitions and toxic chemicals in the District of Columbia's Spring 
Valley community and on the government's non-disclosure of information 
to the D.C. government and its residents.
  As a result of Mr. Jaffe's work, other media reports and our own 
investigation, the D.C. Subcomittee held hearings on July 27, and asked 
the General Accounting Office to conduct a full-scale investigation of 
the Spring Valley site as well as others in the city, where munitions 
or chemicals might have been discarded.

              [From the Washingtonian Magazine, Dec. 2001]

                              Ground Zero

                            (By Harry Jaffe)

       Rick Feeney was cutting the grass one day in 1992 when he 
     heard his black retriever, Kerry, yelping and whining in the 
     construction site next to his home on Glenbrook Road in DC's 
     Spring Valley. He looked over to see the dog in the freshly 
     dug earth, shaking her head, liquid coming from her eyes and 
     mouth. When Feeney went to help, his own eyes started to 
     water, the skin on his arms started to sting, and a bitter 
     taste filled his mouth.
       ``Feels a lot like I've been gassed,'' Feeney thought, 
     recalling his training in the Navy, when he had walked 
     through clouds of tear gas. He went home and hosed off 
     himself and his dog. But every time he mowed his lawn, his 
     eyes watered and his nose ran. Finally the hole was covered 
     over and the house completed--now the home of American 
     University president Benjamin Ladner.
       A few months later, on January 5, 1993, construction 
     workers digging trenches for new houses in Spring Valley a 
     half mile northwest of Feeney's home unearthed what looked 
     like rusted bombs. In a matter of hours, Army bomb-removal 
     units arrived by helicopter from Aberdeen Proving Ground in 
     Maryland. With gas masks on their hips, they determined that 
     the canisters were World War I-era chemical mortar rounds and 
     75-millimeter shells. Some were live and might contain 
     mustard gas, a lethal chemical that caused blindness, skin 
     blisters, and internal and external bleeding in 400,000 World 
     War I soldiers.
       Nan Whalen, who lives near the trench, was at home when an 
     acquaintance phoned. ``My God, Nan, what's going on in your 
     neighborhood?'' asked the caller from her car. She had been 
     invited to a dinner party at Vice President Dan Quayle's home 
     on the Naval Observatory grounds and had just heard that it 
     might be canceled. The Army was worried that a live shell 
     might detonate and send a gas cloud drifting over the vice 
     president's house.
       The first night the Army held a meeting for the community 
     at a church on Westmoreland Circle. Officers told worried 
     residents that the bombs had been left by soldiers who had 
     used the area to produce and test chemical weapons in 1918. 
     They assured residents that everything would be taken care 
     of.
       Rick Feeney stopped an Army officer on the way out and told 
     him about his reaction to the fumes from the property on 
     Glenbrook Road.
       `I assumed it was tear gas,' he told the officer, ``or 
     something that made you feel that you had been gassed.'' The 
     officer turned to an aide. ``Make sure we take a look at 
     this,''
       Through the rest of 1993 and into 1994, the Army recovered 
     141 munitions, including 42 poison-gas shells. In stages, 
     officials evacuated 72 homes in the zone around the bomb pit 
     while soldiers searched for buried munitions; in 1994, 130 
     families were asked to move out, mostly during weekdays, 
     while bomb specialists searched for more ordnance.
       In 1995 the Army Corps of Engineers issued a report 
     describing its explorations and excavations. In sum, it said 
     it had completed its work; Spring Valley was safe. The 
     situation there required ``no further action.''
       Five years later, that seems far from true. Scientist and 
     engineers have determined that the Army missed a number of 
     pits containing buried munitions and toxic chemicals. The 
     search for bomb pits and contaminated soil and water is under 
     way once again. Prodded by DC environmental scientists, the 
     Army Corps of Engineers launched a fresh operation to find 
     and remove hazardous materials from the area. So far it has 
     unearthed twice as many munitions as were found in 1993. 
     Evidence of more toxic chemicals is mounting.
       Documents reviewed under the freedom of Information Act and 
     interviews with investigators and scientists reveal that:
       --The Army plans to evacuate two buildings at American 
     University and five houses early next year while it excavates 
     what is believed to be a disposal site for laboratories that 
     produced lethal munitions.
       --The Army has found high levels of arsenic in a part of 
     Spring Valley once called ``Arsenic Valley'' because of its 
     proximity to a lab that used arsenic in making chemical 
     munitions. Rick Feeney's home lies in its center. Within its 
     borders are a childcare center on AU campus and multimillion-
     dollar mansions on Indian Lane. The federal government lists 
     arsenic, a poisonous heavy metal, as the most hazardous on 
     its toxic-substance list. Health officials have warned people 
     in Spring Valley against eating food grown in their gardens.
       --Theodore J. Gordon, chief operating officer for DC's 
     Department of Health, has asked the Corps to ensure that the 
     groundwater in Spring Valley is clear of toxic chemicals, 
     especially arsenic. Some of Spring Valley's groundwater 
     drains towards Dalecarlia Reservoir, which supplies water to 
     DC. Is there arsenic on the bottom of the reservoir? ``That's 
     a possibility'', Gordon says.
       --Two people who lived in houses built over a 1918 training 
     trench used to test chemical weapons contracted aplastic 
     anemia, a blood disorder that occurs when the bone marrow 
     stops making enough healthy blood cells. The cause of the 
     disease is unknown, but environmental toxins are suspected.
       --According to internal documents and interviews with 
     investigators, five federal agencies, led by the EPA and 
     including the FBI, are investigating whether ``criminal false 
     statements'' contributed to the Corps' determination in 1995 
     that ``no further action'' was necessary.
       While Spring Valley residents learned in 1993 that their 
     neighborhood was built on top of a chemical-weapons proving 
     ground, documents show that American University and the Army 
     knew at least in 1986 that there were ``possible burial 
     sites,'' according to documents filed in lawsuits and reports 
     obtained through FOIA. American University knew as early as 
     1921, when a campus publication referred to buried weapons on 
     campus.
       Lawsuits have been filed in the case. Former district judge 
     Stanley Sporkin ruled in 1997 that the Army had a ``duty to 
     warn'' people about the buried bombs: ``The Army in this case 
     created the hazard and literally `coverd it up,' '' Sporkin 
     wrote in ruling on a lawsuit filed against the Army by a 
     developer in 1996. The Spring Valley investigation is more 
     than a story about buried munitions; it's also about buried 
     intentions and hidden agendas. At critical junctures a 
     community's health and welfare appear to have been sacrificed 
     for bureaucratic infighting and concerns about public image. 
     And the people of

[[Page 16454]]

     Spring Valley have been in conflict over whether to protect 
     their property values or to actively investigate potential 
     risks. There is now no hard evidence of cancer clusters in 
     Spring Valley, but there's's no question that the health 
     risks deserved scientific scrutiny years ago. Says Kenneth 
     Schuster, a US Environmental Protection Agency scientist 
     investigating Spring Valley: There is an indication of high 
     incidence of cancer and rare blood diseases. Are they related 
     to the buried munitions? We don't know, but I'm pushing for 
     an epidemiological study.
       ``There a lot of unfinished business in Spring Valley.''

       

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