The U.S. Army says that World War I-era chemical weapons pose no threat to the air or water in a Washington, D.C. neighborhood despite an ongoing search for buried munitions, the District's congressional delegate said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 13).
Over the past 15 years, the Army Corps of Engineers has conducted four excavations of old chemical weapons and related materials buried near the American University campus, which the military used as a chemical-weapon development and testing site during World War I. Last week, the Army announced it had discovered an open container of mustard blister agent buried in one property that was thought to be nearly cleared.
"Our position is that the corps must remain until there is an objective all-clear here," said Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D). "Nobody need move out of this beautiful neighborhood. It really isn't fair to alarm people. ... There is no indication that the neighborhood is unsafe."
The Army has maintained that the local environment is free of dangerous chemical-weapon contamination, Norton said. Still, she has asked the Corps of Engineers to disclose "all of the substances" it has uncovered in the area, a step it has not yet taken.
Some residents, though, expressed skepticism about the Army's search.
"Give me a backhoe and ground-penetrating radar, and I guarantee I'll find stuff that they missed," said Kent Slowinski.
"The Army corps has done a fairly comprehensive, conscientious job," countered Jeff Stern, another longtime resident. "I'm pretty comfortable that they're going to clean it up, and we're all going to move on" (Michael Ruane, Washington Post, Aug. 20).