On Monday workmen unearthed another crusty munition from its current excavation of the toxic-waste site on Glenbrook Road, a stone’s throw from the American University campus. The fourth such find pulled from the ground in tony Spring Valley since September, the artifact turned out to be a 75-millimeter shrapnel round buried when the Army abandoned a experimental warfare station after World War I.
The Army Corps of Engineers immediately shut down the Glenbrook Road operation, transported the bomb to a secure site behind Sibley Memorial Hospital, and checked it for explosives.
“The fill was determined to be a riot-control agent that was used during World War I,” the Corps announced Wednesday, saying that it “poses no danger to the workers or community.”
Christine Dietrich, who lives across the street from the dig with her husband and two young children, is not reassured.
“It’s absolutely unacceptable,” she told Washingtonian. “I cannot have my children playing in the front yard when they are digging up one bomb after another across the street.”
In November, after the Army denied her request that the federal government resettle her family during the excavation, Dietrich rented an apartment elsewhere in the neighborhood, where her toddler spends the day and her older child goes after school.
Meanwhile the Corps resumed digging this morning. The Army has spent $230 million already in what has become one of the country’s costliest military-debris removal projects, and says it expects to spend at least another a quarter of a billion to finish the cleanup.
In 1917, the Army summoned chemists to the American University Experimental Station to devise lethal chemical mixtures that might be used as weapons in the war in Europe. Test missiles full of these poisons were launched on Spring Valley’s farms and fields at the time. When the Army closed down the labs and testing sites after the armistice, soldiers buried the chemical-laden ordnance in unmarked pits.
This week’s munition discovery is the latest episode in a saga that began in 1993, when construction workers in a new Spring Valley development hit a cache of mortar rounds. Ever since, with a few fits and starts, the Corps has been trying to clean up what is now one of the District’s most elite neighborhoods. Spring Valley, which hugs the city’s far northwest boundary with Maryland, is home to many lawyers, diplomats, and high-ranking federal officials. Three former presidents lived in grand homes along Spring Valley’s winding streets.
In its ongoing search for toxic agents, primarily arsenic used to make chemical weapons, the Corps has dug up more than 1,600 properties and removed tons of contaminated soil, glassware, lab equipment, bottles of chemicals, and more than a thousand munitions. Groundwater monitoring wells dot the neighborhood. Health studies have not found high rates of cancer, but some former residents are convinced they have been sickened by chemicals in the ground and water.
Using maps and aerial photos, the Army zeroed in on 4825 Glenbrook Road as the probable site of a burial pit nicknamed “the hole called Hades,” pictured in a 1918 photograph. The pit could contain a cache of munitions and glassware from the site’s former labs. The property borders American University off Rockwood Parkway. The Army leased the home site, tore down the house, erected a protective tent, and started to excavate. A sophisticated alarm system is supposed to warn neighbors of toxic emissions.
Christine Dietrich is not satisfied. “We have to protect our children,” she says.
Andrea Takesh, a public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Baltimore District, says her office is in regular contact with Dietrich and alerts her when workers are not digging across her street. “Our communication with her is pretty close,” she says.
The excavation and restoration could last into the spring of 2015, or longer, according to Takesh.
Don’t Miss Another Big Story—Get Our Weekend Newsletter
Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday.
No End in Sight for Spring Valley Military Debris Removal Project
Eleven years after the project began, the Army is still digging up toxic waste in the neighborhood.
On Monday workmen unearthed another crusty munition from its current excavation of the toxic-waste site on Glenbrook Road, a stone’s throw from the American University campus. The fourth such find pulled from the ground in tony Spring Valley since September, the artifact turned out to be a 75-millimeter shrapnel round buried when the Army abandoned a experimental warfare station after World War I.
The Army Corps of Engineers immediately shut down the Glenbrook Road operation, transported the bomb to a secure site behind Sibley Memorial Hospital, and checked it for explosives.
“The fill was determined to be a riot-control agent that was used during World War I,” the Corps announced Wednesday, saying that it “poses no danger to the workers or community.”
Christine Dietrich, who lives across the street from the dig with her husband and two young children, is not reassured.
“It’s absolutely unacceptable,” she told Washingtonian. “I cannot have my children playing in the front yard when they are digging up one bomb after another across the street.”
In November, after the Army denied her request that the federal government resettle her family during the excavation, Dietrich rented an apartment elsewhere in the neighborhood, where her toddler spends the day and her older child goes after school.
Meanwhile the Corps resumed digging this morning. The Army has spent $230 million already in what has become one of the country’s costliest military-debris removal projects, and says it expects to spend at least
anothera quarter of a billion to finish the cleanup.In 1917, the Army summoned chemists to the American University Experimental Station to devise lethal chemical mixtures that might be used as weapons in the war in Europe. Test missiles full of these poisons were launched on Spring Valley’s farms and fields at the time. When the Army closed down the labs and testing sites after the armistice, soldiers buried the chemical-laden ordnance in unmarked pits.
This week’s munition discovery is the latest episode in a saga that began in 1993, when construction workers in a new Spring Valley development hit a cache of mortar rounds. Ever since, with a few fits and starts, the Corps has been trying to clean up what is now one of the District’s most elite neighborhoods. Spring Valley, which hugs the city’s far northwest boundary with Maryland, is home to many lawyers, diplomats, and high-ranking federal officials. Three former presidents lived in grand homes along Spring Valley’s winding streets.
In its ongoing search for toxic agents, primarily arsenic used to make chemical weapons, the Corps has dug up more than 1,600 properties and removed tons of contaminated soil, glassware, lab equipment, bottles of chemicals, and more than a thousand munitions. Groundwater monitoring wells dot the neighborhood. Health studies have not found high rates of cancer, but some former residents are convinced they have been sickened by chemicals in the ground and water.
Using maps and aerial photos, the Army zeroed in on 4825 Glenbrook Road as the probable site of a burial pit nicknamed “the hole called Hades,” pictured in a 1918 photograph. The pit could contain a cache of munitions and glassware from the site’s former labs. The property borders American University off Rockwood Parkway. The Army leased the home site, tore down the house, erected a protective tent, and started to excavate. A sophisticated alarm system is supposed to warn neighbors of toxic emissions.
Christine Dietrich is not satisfied. “We have to protect our children,” she says.
Andrea Takesh, a public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Baltimore District, says her office is in regular contact with Dietrich and alerts her when workers are not digging across her street. “Our communication with her is pretty close,” she says.
The excavation and restoration could last into the spring of 2015, or longer, according to Takesh.
Don’t Miss Another Big Story—Get Our Weekend Newsletter
Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday.
Most Popular in News
A Massive Sculpture of an African American Last Supper, Hidden for Years, Has Been Discovered in Columbia Heights
The Impeachment Loophole No One’s Talking About
He Predicted Both Trump’s Election and Impeachment. What Else Does He Know?
All the DC-Area Stuff We’ve Identified in the “Wonder Woman 1984” Trailer (So Far)
A New Program at Dulles Aims to Make Air Travel Easier for Parents
Washingtonian Magazine
December 2019: Made in DC
View IssueSubscribe
Get Us on Social
Get Us on Social
Related
Photos From Washingtonian’s 2019 Top Doctors Reception
Photos From Washingtonian’s 8th Annual Whiskey & Fine Spirits Festival
Photos From Washingtonian’s Talk & Taste, Sponsored by Chubb
A Look Inside One of the Country’s Biggest Vinyl Record Plants
More from News
Washingtonian’s Photo of the Day
A Thoughtful, Nonpartisan Local TV Show in DC May Have Convinced President Trump to Save OPM
Washingtonian’s Photo of the Day
Local Challah Makes It Big in “Fiddler on the Roof” at the National Theatre
People Keep Asking the Wrong Andrew Yangs for $1,000
What’s New With Martha’s Table?
PHOTOS: The 2019 Kennedy Center Honors Celebration
All the DC-Area Stuff We’ve Identified in the “Wonder Woman 1984” Trailer (So Far)