14. CHEMICALS: Panel to brief lawmakers on WWI-era weapons cleanup (06/08/2009)

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it is close to finishing cleanup work at a World War I-era weapons site in Washington, D.C., but the District's Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) said she needs proof the site is safe for residents.

"No information has been submitted to the public or Congress concerning how the corps has ascertained that the entire site is clear, safe and without residual health effects," Norton said last month after requesting the Army Corps to testify before Congress. "The Army Corps left this site before, only to return when more munitions were discovered by accident."

In 1995, the corps declared that the 661-acre Spring Valley Formerly Used Defense Site needed no further cleanup work, but later investigations revealed burial pits containing hundreds of military munitions, including mustard gas agents, and elevated levels of arsenic.

The Army Corps will get a chance to make its case at a Wednesday hearing before the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia on its proposal to conclude cleanup of chemical weapons, unexploded ordinances and other chemicals in Spring Valley.

Col. Peter Mueller will update the subcommittee on the corps' ongoing work at the site and detail its plans moving forward, said Chris Augsburger, a spokesman for the corps' Baltimore District.

"Planning to complete a phase is not the same as planning to complete a project," Augsburger said, noting that the corps plans to begin work in 2010 on a remedial investigation feasibility study into any remaining potential threats to human health and the environment at the site.

"We will allow the facts and data to guide our work, not a timeline," Augsburger said.

By the end of 2010, the corps plans to wrap up its removal of arsenic-contaminated soil and conclude its search for buried munitions, Augsburger said. The Spring Valley neighborhood includes about 1,200 private homes, several embassies and foreign properties, as well as American University.

The U.S. Army used Spring Valley for research and testing of chemical agents, equipment and munitions during and immediately after the war. A utility worker discovered a buried ordinance in 1993, prompting the establishment of a multi-agency effort led by the corps with the assistance of U.S. EPA and the D.C. departments of Health and Environment.

A May 2007 report by Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the community health status of Spring Valley was "very good" and that mortality rates for the 15 most common causes of death compared well with national levels and were lower than in comparable areas of nearby Chevy Chase, Md.

Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, June 10, at 2 p.m. in 2247 Rayburn.

Witnesses: Anu Mittal, director of the natural resources and environment team, U.S. Government Accountability Office; James Barton, Underwater Ordnance Recovery Inc.; Addison Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for the environment, safety and occupational health; Col. Peter Mueller, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; William Early, acting regional administrator, U.S. EPA; George Hawkins, director, D.C. Department of the Environment; Neil Kerwin, president, American University; Greg Beumel, chairman, Spring Valley Restoration Advisory Board; Nan Shelby Wells, ANC commissioner 3d03; Thomas Smith, ANC commissioner 3d02; and Harold Bailey, an attorney with Garvey, Schubert, Barer.