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SPRING VALLEY—TOXIC WASTE CONTAMINATION

IN THE NATION’S CAPITAL

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 27, 2001

Serial No. 107–42

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland, Chairman

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia,

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

DIANE E. WATSON, California

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

RUSSELL SMITH, Staff Director

HOWARD DENNIS, Professional Staff Member

MATTHEW BATT, Clerk

JON BOUKER, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 27, 2001 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Ladner, Benjamin, president, American University; Lewis D. Walker,

former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, Environment, Safety,

and Occupational Health; Francis E. Reardon, Auditor General of the

Army, U.S. Army Audit Agency, accompanied by Stephen Kiefer, Deputy Auditor General, U.S. Army Audit Agency; Raymond J. Fatz, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Army, Environment, Safety and Occupational

Health, accompanied by Colonel Charles J. Fiala, Army Corps of Engineers ............................................................................................................... 130

Walks, Ivan C.A., M.D., chief health officer of the District of Columbia,

accompanied by Theodore J. Gordon, chief operating officer, D.C. Department of Health; and Dr. Richard D. Albright, JD, MS, environmental specialist/ordnance & chemical weapons expert, D.C. Department of Health; Dr. Bailus Walker, Jr., chairman, District of Columbia

Mayor’s Spring Valley Scientific Advisory Panel; Sarah Stowell

Shapley, co-chair, Spring Valley Restoration Advisory Board; William

C. Harrop, president, Spring Valley-Wesley Heights Citizens Association; and Edward J. Miller, Jr., president, W.C. and A.N. Miller Development Co. ..................................................................................................... 10

Williams, Rear Admiral Robert, Director, Division of Health Assessment

and Consultation, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry;

and Thomas C. Voltaggio, Acting Regional Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency Region III .......................................................... 109

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Davis, Hon. Thomas M., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 306

Fatz, Raymond J., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Army, Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, prepared statement of .................................. 251

Fiala, Colonel Charles J., Army Corps of Engineers:

Letter dated August 22, 2001 ................................................................... 298

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 260

Harrop, William C., president, Spring Valley-Wesley Heights Citizens

Association, prepared statement of ............................................................. 34

Ladner, Benjamin, president, American University, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 133

Miller, Edward J., Jr., president, W.C. and A.N. Miller Development

Co., prepared statement of ........................................................................... 38

Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 4

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Representative in Congress from the

District of Columbia:

List of addresses ........................................................................................ 302

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Reardon, Francis E., Auditor General of the Army, U.S. Army Audit

Agency, prepared statement of .................................................................... 230

Shapley, Sarah Stowell, co-chair, Spring Valley Restoration Advisory

Board, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 29

Voltaggio, Thomas C., Acting Regional Administrator, Environmental

Protection Agency Region III, prepared statement of ................................ 118

Walker, Dr. Bailus, Jr., chairman, District of Columbia Mayor’s Spring

Valley Scientific Advisory Panel, prepared statement of .......................... 12

Walker, Lewis D., former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health, prepared statement of ......... 228

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Walks, Ivan C.A., M.D., chief health officer of the District of Columbia,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 78

Williams, Rear Admiral Robert, Director, Division of Health Assessment

and Consultation, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 112

(1)

SPRING VALLEY—TOXIC WASTE

CONTAMINATION IN THE NATION’S CAPITAL

FRIDAY, JULY 27, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Constance A. Morella

(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Morella, Platts, Norton, and Watson.

Staff present: Russell Smith, staff director; Heea Vazirani-Fales,

deputy staff director; Robert White, communications director; Matthew Batt, legislative assistant; Shalley Kim, staff assistant; Howard Dennis, professional staff for representative davis; Jon Bouker,

minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mrs. MORELLA. Good morning. I’m going to call to order the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia for its hearing on toxic

waste contamination in the Nation’s Capital.

It is a pleasure to welcome you all, witnesses and interested parties, to the sixth hearing of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia in this 107th Congress.

I want to recognize members of the subcommittee. We have, of

course, the ranking member, who has been so valuable, the foundation of this subcommittee, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Later we expect that we will have Mr. Platts of Pennsylvania, who

will be joining us, and probably Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. And we

have a new member from California, Congresswoman Diane Watson, who replaced Julian Dixon, who was somebody who served

very valiantly on the District of Columbia Subcommittee.

I want to make special mention of our witnesses. They’re here

because of their expertise and knowledge regarding the identification or remediation of contaminated sites in Spring Valley, or they

are here because they have been affected in some way by the burial

of those dangerous chemical weapons. There are many others who

fall into the latter category. I regret that we can’t hear from all of

them. If, however, there are some who want to submit testimony,

the record will be open for 5 legislative days.

I want to remind witnesses that the rules of the Committee on

Government Reform require that all witnesses be administered an

oath prior to testifying, and I want to encourage our opening statements, because of the number of people that we have testifying in

this important hearing, ask them if they would kindly confine their

statements to 5 minutes or so and that their entire statements will

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be placed into the record. That will give us more opportunity for

dialog with the witnesses.

The entire prepared statements will be in the record. We’ll hold

the record, again, for 5 legislative days.

Now I’d like to make some opening comments. In 1918, shortly

after the United States entered World War I, the U.S. Army accomplished a chemical weapons testing station in upper Northwest

D.C. In a neighborhood now known as Spring Valley. The Army

leased the land from the American University and nine other property owners.

The American University experimental station soon became the

world’s second largest chemical weapons facility, behind only a

similar outpost in Aberdeen, MD. At its peak, 1,900 military and

civilian employees worked there, and untold numbers of experimental chemical weapons were exploded over its hundreds of acres.

More than 80 years later, we’re still struggling to determine the

precise extent of the environmental and possibly human damage

caused by the Army at its American University facility. Despite

several cleanup efforts and more than one declaration that the area

was safe, the Army Corps of Engineers is still locating buried munitions and discovering worrisome levels of arsenic and other

chemicals in the soil. Residents with serious illnesses are left wondering if prolonged exposure to these chemicals is to blame. Parents are worried their young children might be the next ones to

turn up sick.

The background of this case, including some aspects that are just

now becoming known publicly, is long and complicated, but the important points are this: The U.S. Army twice examined the Spring

Valley area, once in 1986 at the request of American University,

and once beginning in 1993 after munitions were found by a construction crew. The first time, it decided against substantial evidence suggesting otherwise that archival materials did not support

further investigation. It was seemingly joined in this conclusion by

American University.

The second time the Army Corps of Engineers spent 2 years

identifying and removing munitions and conducting soil samples. It

ultimately declared the area safe, only to be proved wrong after the

D.C. Government challenged its findings. The result, of course, is

that for the past 2 years, the Corps has been back at Spring Valley

extracting chemical weapons and performing more soil tests.

This shouldn’t be taken to suggest that the U.S. Army is the only

party at fault. While we are still learning all the facts, it’s apparent

that at best, the Army, American University, the Environmental

Protection Agency and the District government and perhaps others

may have failed to take aggressive action to learn the true nature

of buried munitions at Spring Valley. At worst, there was a conspiracy of silence that jeopardized public health, threatened the

houses of hundreds of families and eroded people’s trust in government.

This situation raises many troubling questions, and among them,

do we have a feasible plan for righting the wrongs at Spring Valley? Is it proper for the Army Corps to remain in charge of this

cleanup operation, or is some kind of independent oversight warranted? And are there other Spring Valleys throughout—lurking

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beneath the surface of our Nation’s Capital or some other

unsuspecting community?

Today’s hearing will focus on many different aspects of the

Spring Valley situation, but our goal is simple. We want answers,

accountability and action. We want answers from the Army Corps

of Engineers, from the Environmental Protection Agency, from

American University, from anyone who knew or should have

known of the dangerous chemicals that lay just below the Earth’s

surface.

Why did it take so long for this hazard to come to light? How

could it have been prevented or the risk to human health at least

mitigated? We demand accountability.

I find it difficult to believe that once the AU testing station

closed in or about 1921, no one in a position of power gave it a second thought, and after a few years, no one, we’ve been told, even

remembered that chemical weapons testing had been conducted

there. This is quite amazing, given that American University later

hosted military operations during World War II, and according to

documents that my staff collected, the university discovered an

unexploded bomb on its campus back in 1953 or 1954 during construction of its TV tower. Despite that, it’s at least evident that the

Army, the American University, the EPA and others had a good

idea of the magnitude of the contamination no later than 1986, following the university’s research of the public archives, and yet

nothing was done.

These are the answers we seek.

Finally, we require action. The Army Corps, working with the

city, the residents and other parties, has pledged to test every

property in Spring Valley, all 1,200 of them, for arsenic and other

chemicals and then followup with necessary remediation. This subcommittee is very interested to hear how this process is progressing; and from the preliminary information that we have, however,

I must say I’m not happy with the pace of this testing. It needed

to be done yesterday.

I want to conclude with a question posed by a Spring Valley resident named Ed Stephens: ‘‘When will we ever be sure this place

is totally clear of munitions?’’ Unfortunately, as of today, July 27,

2001, the U.S. Government does not have an answer for him. It is

especially unfortunate, because Mr. Stephens asked this question,

according to a Washington Post article, on January 6, 1993, 1 day

after he and 24 other families were forced to evacuate their homes

because munitions were found nearby. And after all this time, the

people of Spring Valley deserve an answer.

I shall now recognize the distinguished ranking member of the

subcommittee, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, for her

opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Constance A. Morella follows:]

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Mrs. NORTON. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate

that our Chair, Connie Morella, has been willing to schedule this

hearing before the August recess, and her willingness to call further hearings on toxic contamination in our Spring Valley community in the future, as appropriate.

When I listed Spring Valley in a letter containing a priority list

for hearings at the beginning of the session, I believe that the matter ranked high in the need for oversight to get greater focus on

the health effects on residents and to assure a more rapid cleanup

so that residents could resume normal lives in their beautiful, tranquil community.

Recently, however, the plot has thickened. An investigation by

the Washington Post revealed that the Army and/or Environmental

Protection Agency and perhaps others may have suppressed information or, worse, analysis and audits concerning toxic waste may

have failed to investigate evidence of risk to residents from toxic

residue that they knew of and may have missed the presence of

contaminants because of incompetence in at least some of the soil

testing that was done.

Understanding who knew what and when, of course, is an indispensable component of our investigation. However, the most important contribution this subcommittee can make at this time is to

identify and eliminate health risks to the community and to ensure

that the remediation being undertaken now by the Army will remove all remaining toxins from Spring Valley rapidly and professionally.

Part of the problem in Spring Valley has been that the agencies

involved have been investigating and monitoring themselves and

have been accountable to no one else. It is our obligation to investigate these allegations fairly and openly. However, the ad hoc way

in which the facts have tumbled out, I believe, warrants an even

deeper investigation than our hearings can provide.

In addition to our own subcommittee work, I’m asking our Chair,

Mrs. Morella, to join me in requesting an investigation by the General Accounting Office of exactly what occurred in Spring Valley

and other D.C. neighborhoods—who was responsible, what levels of

toxicity remain, what would constitute adequate remediation, what

the health risks are and to whom, how the health risks may be

eliminated permanently, and what violations of law may be raised.

I have gone into the Spring Valley community on several occasions and have always been assured by the Army Corps of Engineers that the matter was close to resolution.

The continuing uncertainty surrounding the entire Spring Valley

controversy has been nothing short of cruel. Some residents do not

know if illnesses they and their families have acquired are the result of the presence of toxins. Other residents fear that they or

their children will become ill. The very least the government must

do now is to eliminate as much uncertainty concerning health risks

as possible, and in appropriate cases, compensate individual victims.

The community at large is owed a clean bill of health that no one

can give at this time, nor am I sure that other neighborhoods in

the district are free of toxic munitions and chemicals, particularly

given the way we discovered these toxins, by accident, by excaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:28 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77354.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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vation when people were building homes. The Congress denied District residents their own municipal government for 100 years until

1974. If private parties could be persuaded to allow land to be used

for weapons testing, there is no telling what might have occurred

in neighborhoods near Federal land when the District of Columbia

was little more than a Federal fiefdom.

We need to know if other neighborhoods are contaminated now.

Spring Valley is only one of thousands of similar sites across the

Nation. The Spring Valley experience has led me to become an

original cosponsor of the Ordnance and Explosive Risk Management Act, which requires the Department of Defense to establish

a single point of contact for policy and budgeting issues related to

former military sites, creates an inventory of explosive risk sites,

sets up a separate account for removal and cleanup of munitions,

requires enhanced security at military sites and public awareness

of the dangers at those sites, and creates an independent oversight

panel.

For now, the subcommittee must give the most concentrated

focus and attention to Spring Valley and its residents for the assistance we can render them and for what their experience can

teach us for the rest of the country.

It would be wrong to rewrite history based on today’s science. It

is equally wrong to learn by accident of toxic wastes near where

people live or work. Today’s science must be brought to bear to

make up for mistakes the government may not have known it was

making after World War I.

Today’s mistakes in dealing with these wastes make the government culpable, however. Therefore, let us work together to accelerate remediation through a full and competent cleanup that includes

independent verification that both toxic wastes and health risks

have been eliminated.

I welcome all of today’s witnesses and I look forward to their testimony.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Norton.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I’m now going to ask the first panel to come forward. I note that Dr. Walks has not joined us yet, nor has Mr. Gordon nor Dr. Albright. So Dr. Bailus Walker, Jr., Sarah Stowell

Shapley, William Harrop, and Edward J. Miller, Jr.

Before you get comfortable, I’m going to ask you if you would

stand so I can administer the oath to you. If you would raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. MORELLA. The record will note an affirmative response.

Welcome. Thank you for coming. Again, as I had stated initially,

if you would be kind enough to confine your testimony to not exceed 5 minutes, knowing that it is—in its entirety, your testimony

will be in the record, because we want to have an opportunity to

ask some questions and because we have two other panels.

So if you don’t mind starting off earlier than you thought you

would, Dr. Bailus Walker, chairman of the District of Columbia

Mayor’s Spring Valley Scientific Advisory Panel, we’re delighted to

recognize you.

STATEMENTS OF IVAN C.A. WALKS, M.D., CHIEF HEALTH OFFICER OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ACCOMPANIED BY

THEODORE J. GORDON, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, D.C.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH; AND DR. RICHARD D. ALBRIGHT,

JD, MS, ENVIRONMENTAL SPECIALIST/ORDNANCE & CHEMICAL WEAPONS EXPERT, D.C. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH; DR.

BAILUS WALKER, JR., CHAIRMAN, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

MAYOR’S SPRING VALLEY SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY PANEL;

SARAH STOWELL SHAPLEY, CO-CHAIR, SPRING VALLEY RESTORATION ADVISORY BOARD; WILLIAM C. HARROP, PRESIDENT, SPRING VALLEY-WESLEY HEIGHTS CITIZENS ASSOCIATION; AND EDWARD J. MILLER, JR., PRESIDENT, W.C.

AND A.N. MILLER DEVELOPMENT CO.

Mr. BAILUS WALKER. Thank you, Chairwoman Morella and

Ranking Member Norton and distinguished Members. I’m Bailus

Walker, chairman of the District of Columbia Mayor’s Spring Valley Scientific Advisory Panel, and I am professor of environmental

occupation medicine at Howard University College of Medicine, and

I appreciate the invitation to participate in the subcommittee’s effort to determine a range of factors regarding chemical contamination in the Spring Valley community.

My comments will focus on findings, recommendations of the scientific advisory panel, which was appointed by the Mayor earlier

this year in response to environmental and health concerns of the

Spring Valley residents. And the panel was chosen for their technical expertise in toxicology and epidemiology, environmental occupation health sciences and soil analysis; and the panel included two

residents from the Spring Valley community who are knowledgeable of the community. The Mayor charged the panel to review the

processes and procedures under way regarding the identified and

measured contaminants in the Spring Valley neighborhood, and the

Mayor also charged us to assure that the best available scientific

knowledge is applied in seeking answers to the residents’ questions.

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Madam Chairman, the full text of my report is attached and I

ask that it be inserted into the record.

Mrs. MORELLA. Without objection.

Mr. BAILUS WALKER. And I will simply summarize our——

Mrs. MORELLA. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. BAILUS WALKER. Thank you

Which is a reflection of the panel’s concern.

First of all, I think the panel agreed with the approach that the

Corps of Engineers was using to evaluate the soil. That plan was

presented to the advisory panel in considerable detail, and it was

our view, based on the expertise of our soil scientists, that this was

a sound approach. The panel recommended also that the District

of Columbia develop a very comprehensive plan; and I think earlier

the District was just responding to complaints and concerns, and

there was no clear-cut plan. And so our panel recommended that

the District develop a comprehensive plan which would really enhance efforts to try to get an answer to some of the concerns raised

by the community.

We also recommended that the District government use the soil

sampling results from the Corps of Engineers as the basis for determining what additional human testing should be done. In other

words, in areas or in neighborhoods on properties where there were

high concentrations of arsenic or whatever contaminant, that would

signal to the District of Columbia that should be testing about

monitoring of the individuals who live on those hot spots.

We also recommended that the District of Columbia do another

analysis of cancer trends. The presentation that was made to a

panel lacked what we thought was a good comparison group. The

comparison group was chosen from the census tracts next to Spring

Valley, and we suggested that from a sound epidemiological standpoint, the control group should be outside of that area and under

the same socioeconomic profile as the Spring Valley community.

We also recommended that the three agencies, District of Columbia, Corps of Engineers and EPA, really develop a plan for communicating the results of the environmental analysis as well as the

health analysis, a plan so that the public—the community residents fully understood the scientific issues, as well as the data that

was being collected. In other words, a kind of risk communication

process should be developed.

Madam Chairman, those are the principal recommendations of

our committee, and as I indicated, my full statement is attached.

I would conclude that there is a need for a full health risk assessment of the potential exposure contaminants—of the residents to

the contaminants in that community. We felt that there was a need

for more data before we could draw any sound conclusion with respect to health and environmental issues.

That concludes my testimony, Madam Chairman. I invite any

questions that you may have.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Dr. Walker. We will address questions to you at the end of the first panel.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I’m pleased to recognize Ms. Shapley.

Ms. SHAPLEY. Good morning. May I say in opening, thank you,

Chairman Morella and our own Delegate Norton, for holding this

hearing. I want to acknowledge that Mrs. Norton has visited

Spring Valley, and among her innumerable D.C. visits, that is certainly appreciated. And her specifics in the opening statement, I

think fall very much in line with some of the points that I am making. So I welcome that in advance.

Let me just say, I am Sarah Stowell Shapley, elected community

co-chair of the Spring Valley Restoration Advisory Board for the

Army Corps of Engineers cleanup of war-related contamination of

our neighborhood. This board is a mechanism authorized by statute

for the Defense Department’s Formerly Used Defense Sites

[FUDS], and has a membership comprising the various stakeholders in the cleanup project.

Besides institutional members representing American University,

the local property developer of Spring Valley, the W.C. & A.N. Miller Co., the local elementary public school, Horace Mann, and the

D.C. Department of Health in region 3 of the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, besides these, there are 14 community members

who were all residents in the area. I was elected from this group.

The Corps project manager, Major Michael Peloquin, is the other

cochair.

I should also say that in my non-volunteer life, I am indeed an

employee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency here in

Washington.

I want to emphasize, this is a very recently constituted board.

July 10th was our first meeting after having elected a community

co-chair. The statutory rules dictate that we speak as individuals,

and so I will offer reflections upon concerns and priorities I have

heard from both fellow resident board members and other neighbors who have contacted me. My role, in part, is to be an enabler,

to reflect views and demands and to reflect upon them so as to enable the community’s interest to be served. The basic purpose of

the advisory board mechanism for the Corps is to provide it with

a means of community review and comment on its proposed actions

and plans.

So today I have three basic messages for this D.C. Subcommittee.

First, there are 1,200 households coping with the health and safety

questions arising from the Army’s contamination, and also coping

with the potentially declining property values of their homes.

Second, there is mistrust of the Army’s ability to be fully forthcoming and actually get the job done, based on their having to reverse their own finding of 1995 that the neighborhood was clear

and safe. Lawsuits among the principal parties, the university and

the developer and the Army, have only served to reveal a record

of non-disclosure and avoidance.

Nonetheless, third message, there is a will to focus forward—that

is my motto for the day, focus forward—and a demand to move forward with actually adequate testing and secure cleanup rather

than to divert critical resources to rehearse the past.

Let me illustrate the first message about 1,200 homeowners coping. I am especially moved by—and you have alluded to this, and

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ship would be, too—those new homeowners who come up to me,

wondering if this most important investment in their family life is

about to be derailed. Parents wonder if their gardens are safe for

their children to play in and if their homegrown vegetables are safe

to eat. Homeowners employ garden workers, landscaping and construction firms which, in turn, wonder about the occupational safety of their workers. People have heard of the two cases of aplastic

anemia and wonder when a systematic health survey will be conducted. People struggle to understand what to make of all the numbers for test results and risk levels, and mostly people worry, when

will it all be over? When will we feel secure again?

The second message of mistrust about full disclosure is manifest

in the community board members’ decision, as detailed in the meeting of July 10th, to write the Secretary of the Army to request that

two things be provided to the community forthwith: A full set of

documentation on the Army’s dealing with the site, as well as the

EPA’s and the D.C. Health Department’s; and second, a ranking

point of contact in the Department of the Army who can respond

authoritatively to the community’s inquiries.

Those are fairly specific things, and I’m sure you’ll followup.

The third message on the imperative to move forward with actually adequate testing and secure cleanup may be exemplified by the

agenda now developing among community members. Expanded

testing is seen as a probable need—expansion in spatial terms, as

in adjacent property to major points of interest, and in chemical

terms, as in applying the longer list of chemical by-products to a

wider scope of properties.

While there is provision for expanded followup in the sampling

protocol, there is a perception of reluctance—no clear schedule and

a great anxiety as to whether adequate funds are available to get

the whole job done. Perhaps most troubling is the whole question

of munitions and related chemical material remaining in the

ground and the questionable detection testing methods used to

date.

There is a newer methodological exercise under way, we understand, at the Army’s Research Center in Huntsville, AL, but I

think there is a growing sense that what is needed is a re-survey

of the whole area and certainly of those high-use areas within

Spring Valley. Such a survey should also collate all the evidence

of disposal material—maps, lab records and transfer records.

Finally, I want to convey in very strong terms the need for you

and the Congress, if we may ask, to support a health survey. Dr.

Walker has alluded to this. This has been recommended formally

by the D.C. Health Department and its Science Advisory Panel.

Your help, as I see it, is to sort out the government parties who

can authorize this study, who can pay for it—what is the budget

required.

The final priority I want to raise with this D.C. Subcommittee

is one that may even necessitate congressional statutory action. It

concerns the question of the government’s providing final certification of clearance of hazard to each of the 1,200 property owners,

a clearance that would run with the land.

There are two aspects to this question: insurance for liability of

the investigative work of the government contractor, which is

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deemed inadequate; and a certification from the U.S. Government

that would convey with the deed to the property and that would

have firm financial backing in the event that the representation

and warranty of the U.S. Government proved incorrect.

There are, as I understand it, statutory or regulatory limits on

the feasible amount of liability insurance that fall woefully short

for a population of 1,200 properties; and at this time, we have no

idea whether the U.S. Government will certify a final clearance of

each property that meets the rigorous standard required in real estate for certification of future safety of property.

Finally, I wish to address an implication of an option I understand you are considering, namely, to institute an independent control. I’m quoting from the Washington Post editorial, but obviously

you have raised this in your opening remarks.

I would ask two things of you as you consider this option: one,

that you involve the community in your consultations; and two,

that you ensure that any new structure for the project include a

mechanism such as the presently constituted community advisory

board. All of us are volunteers who have invested too much, have

so demonstrated their commitment to community welfare and are,

frankly, I think, too beneficial to the whole undertaking to be ignored and set aside at this stage. I believe you have a great resource in us in evaluating the best way forward, and I hope you

will use it.

Thank you for the opportunity to present my perspective.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Ms. Shapley.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Shapley follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. And before I recognize Mr. Harrop and Mr. Miller, let me point out our new member of the subcommittee, Todd

Platts from Pennsylvania, and recognize him for any opening comment.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just appreciate you

and Eleanor Norton holding this hearing and allowing what I believe will be a very productive discussion to occur on a very important issue, and I appreciate those who are here on the first panel

and the panels to follow for their taking the time to show their

knowledge and wisdom with us on this important issue.

Thank you.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. Thank you.

And now, Mr. William Harrop, who is president of the Spring

Valley-Wesley Heights Citizens Association.

Mr. HARROP. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

The Spring Valley-Wesley Heights Citizens Association was created in the last century to promote the welfare of our two adjoining

northwest Washington communities. I’ve been present since February 1997. We thank the committee for holding this public hearing to explore the contamination of our neighborhood by military

toxic chemicals.

Our members have several principal worries and fears. All of

these are aggravated by a sense of uncertainty. We have learned

that several times the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency decided to withhold and not act upon information that proved highly relevant to our welfare. The American

University appears on some occasions to have been complicit. This

has created an uneasy mistrust complicating the relationship between the Army, EPA, and American University with Spring Valley

residents.

The health of our families is, of course, our first concern. People

worry that their children have for many years played and dug in

the dirt, that gardening may have been a risky hobby. Rumors are

rife about risk of cancer and other fatal diseases but nobody really

knows. The Spring Valley area needs and deserves a comprehensive medical monitoring program to determine the level of harm

that has been caused by the contaminants in our neighborhood.

It is our understanding that the Comprehensive Environmental

Response Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, the Superfund,

contains provisions to allow for extensive public health studies.

Superfund designates the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease

Registry as the lead agency. We ask your help in getting a comprehensive medical monitoring program under way immediately.

We are very puzzled as to why this has not already occurred.

Citizens’ investment in their homes is the major asset of many

people. On anecdotal evidence, residents believe there is already an

accelerating turnover of properties caused by fear of contamination.

They believe they should be protected from losses attributable to

the presence of military toxins. The Federal Government seems unwilling or legally unable to indemnify homeowners against such

loss.

The D.C. Department of Health has formally warned citizens to

minimize exposure to soil, to wear protective masks in the presence

of dust and not to eat homegrown vegetables. The identification of

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concentrations of hazardous materials and the cleanup of such

areas will not be completed for many months, probably not for

many years. Meanwhile, citizens are puzzled and concerned that

District authorities permit widespread construction, earth disturbance and excavation to spread on nearly every street in Spring Valley. New projects have begun in recent weeks. Either there is danger to the public from toxic deposits at locations not yet pinpointed,

or there is not.

We are particularly disturbed that, on July 19th, the D.C. Zoning

Commission, against the recommendations of two neighborhood advisory commissions and six neighborhood associations, approved

American University’s 10-year expansion plan. This is a green light

for extensive excavation and earth movement at specific campus locations prior to the identification and cleanup of chemical contamination.

The primary purpose of the Superfund program enacted by Congress in 1980 is to identify contaminated sites so that a proper remedial investigation and evaluation can be conducted. The evaluation process and the process for selecting a remedy appropriate to

address the risks discovered is contained in the National Contingency Plan. To ensure that all sites are properly and promptly

identified, Superfund Section 103 requires that those who, ‘‘own or

operate,’’ such sites report them to EPA. This reporting obligation

became effective in late 1980 when Superfund became law. It applies to both the United States and to American University.

Based on their involvement in the chemical weapons program

conducted at AU, both the United States and AU had sufficient

knowledge of the presence of contamination to require that the

Spring Valley site be identified to EPA in 1980 or 1981. It is certainly possible that the United States and American University

should be given the benefit of the doubt as to whether reporting

was required as of the early 1980’s. However, there is no excuse

for their failure to file the required report in 1986 when both AU

and the United States received information from the analysis of

aerial photography and a search of the records that contamination

was likely present in Spring Valley.

It appears that, in 1986, the United States and American University jointly decided to ignore the contamination and the potential harm it was causing instead of making the required Superfund

report.

If either had made a timely report, the national contingency plan

provisions for a thorough investigation and appropriate remedial

action in consultation with the community would long since have

been implemented. Despite this background, the allocation of historical blame is not of great interest to residents of Spring Valley.

We want to see the work of identifying toxic materials and undertaking a full cleanup completed as rapidly as is consonant with

care and professionalism. Citizens want assurance that the problem is behind us.

However, the fact remains that no agency has implemented and

completed all of the evaluation steps specified by the National Contingency Plan. We ask that the subcommittee make certain that

adequate resources be allocated to complete this work expeditiously.

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We ask that the subcommittee look into the question of indemnification of property owners. We ask that the subcommittee query

the District about its authorization of continuing earth disturbance

in potentially contaminated areas. We ask that the subcommittee

press for an immediate and responsible medical survey.

We do not believe that new bureaucratic layers or supervisory

commissions would serve a useful purpose. The Restoration Advisory Board can be a citizen watchdog on our behalf. We ask that

you maintain a continuing interest in our complicated problems

and that you leave open the possibility of further hearings if circumstances warrant it.

Thank you very much for holding this hearing.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Harrop.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harrop follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I would now like to recognize Edward J. Miller,

Jr., who is the president of W.C. & A.N. Miller Development Co.

Welcome.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Mrs. MORELLA. You press the buzzer. There you go.

Mr. MILLER. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to

testify on this important matter. My name is Edward J. Miller Jr.

and I’m the president of W.C. & A.N. Miller Co. My family has

been building in the Spring Valley community for three generations, and I’m very proud of the role we have played in its development.

The Miller Co. is a third-generation, family owned real estate

business which was started by my grandfather and great-uncle in

1912. We’ve been building our customers homes in Spring Valley

for more than 70 years. When my grandfather and great-uncle purchased this property in 1926, it was a farm.

My family and I are extremely proud to be part of this community; not only do we work here, but my family and friends live here.

My mother lives on 52nd street. My sister, brother-in-law, five

nieces and nephews, live on Warren Street.

On January 5, 1993, I received a phone call that changed the future of our company. I soon learned that an unexpected find on

52nd Court was a pit of high explosive and chemical munitions. To

say the least, I was shocked. We had no idea that anything like

this was lurking beneath the surface of our property or elsewhere

in Spring Valley.

By 1995, at the conclusion of the investigation, I felt that our

community and our lives were back to normal, based in part on the

Corps’s statement that no further action was required. Prior to

January 1993, the Miller Co. had no knowledge about the Army’s

burial of chemical munitions or war-related soil contamination in

Spring Valley. There were no warnings in the deeds, no science,

flags, markers or other warning devices. We had no anecdotal information about the Army’s disregard for the future inhabitants of

this beautiful neighborhood.

Shortly after the discovery of the munitions pit, it was revealed

that the Army, EPA and American University had possession of an

undisclosed report from 1986, documenting the area’s use as a

chemical weapons testing ground. That report concluded that additional munitions might be buried in the area. For the record, the

Miller Co. never had any knowledge about this internal report until

after January 5, 1993.

The Army’s failure to warn the Miller Co. about the buried munitions caused us substantial harm and expense. During the investigation, we devoted substantial resources to ensure that the people

of this community were safe. When we asked the Army to reimburse us for these costs, as they were doing for others in the community, we were informed that we would have to file a claim under

the Federal Tort Claims Act. For this reason, we filed a lawsuit

against the government in 1995. The ultimate settlement barely

covered our costs.

The company’s lack of knowledge about the area’s historical use

was documented in an affidavit prepared by my late father, who

was born in 1925 and grew up in nearby Wesley Heights and

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Spring Valley. As a child, he played in the neighborhood, rode his

pony around World War II victory barns near where the munitions

were discovered.

He also described the many famous people for whom he built

homes in the neighborhood, including Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Supreme Court Justice Black. The Miller

Co.’s chief architect for 60 years, Ed Spano, also raised his family

within 300 feet of the original discovery in 1993. None of them ever

mentioned any knowledge about the Army’s activities.

The U.S. District Court has twice ruled that the government was

liable for failing to warn the Miller Co. and the community about

buried munitions.

But that is the past. I believe that the Spring Valley community,

working closely with the D.C. government and Federal agencies,

has provided a level of oversight that has resulted and will continue to result in an open and communicative process that will

achieve the highest standard of care for the health and safety of

the residents of Spring Valley.

It is undeniable that mistakes were made. Nevertheless, I believe

that the Army generally did a good job. The remaining concerns appear limited and isolated, and I believe working together as we

have successfully in the past, we can again get through this as

well.

The Spring Valley neighborhood remains one of the most desirable communities in the country. According to real estate data from

MRIS, over the past 5 years, home sales in Spring Valley have

averaged 51 homes per year, with an average increase in sales

price for the same period of over 114 percent.

In closing, I challenge the Army, the EPA and the District government to commit the appropriate resources to identify and remediate any residual risks to our community. At the end of the day,

the community needs to have complete confidence that no further

action is required.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you today.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I’m now going to ask Dr. Walks, Ivan C.A. Walks,

and Theodore Gordon and Dr. Richard Albright if they would stand

so I could administer an oath before they testify. If you would raise

your right hands, gentlemen.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. MORELLA. The record, again, will demonstrate and state an

affirmative response.

We have asked those who are testifying to try to confine their

comments to 5 minutes. I think you’re the one who basically is

going to be testifying, Dr. Walks, and perhaps they will be assisting in some way. So I would be happy to recognize you.

Oh, and before I do, I would like to introduce to those who are

here today the newest member of our subcommittee. I think this

will be her very first meeting. I had already introduced her before

she arrived, Diane Watson, who is from California, and who replaced the late Julian Dixon. She will be a very valuable addition

to this subcommittee.

Welcome. Did you have an opening comment you wanted to

make, Congresswoman Watson?

Ms. WATSON. Madam Chair, I would like to say thank you for the

introduction, and it is quite a privilege to serve on the Committee

on Government Reform. I look forward to addressing some of the

issues that have been identified in the past and will be ongoing.

I also look forward to serving on the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, along with our esteemed representative from

D.C., and I hope to be able to be effective, and I will take my lead

from the Chair and the ranking member on the D.C. Subcommittee, Ms. Norton. I look forward to the work that is ahead and the

challenge, too, and thank you so much.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. We’re delighted to have you on board.

And so now, Dr. Walks.

Mr. WALKS. Good morning, Madam Chairman Morella, Ms. Norton, Mr. Platts, and Ms. Watson. I am particularly excited to see

Ms. Watson, who I had the pleasure of working with years ago in

California.

I am Dr. Ivan Walks. I’m the chief health officer of the District

of Columbia and director of the Department of Health. With me

today are Theodore J. Gordon, our chief operating officer for the

Department of Health; Dr. Richard Albright; and other senior scientists with the District of Columbia Department of Health. We appreciate this opportunity to testify, and commend you for convening

this hearing, because the discussion here this morning further supports the efforts of the District of Columbia Department of Health

to eliminate the issues regarding environmental exposures to contaminants in the Spring Valley community.

We are also committed to continuously informing the affected

community and involving them in our decisionmaking procedures

designed to address their concerns. We cannot overemphasize the

importance of an ongoing interaction between the District government and members of the Spring Valley community. There can be

no substitute for an informed community and the basic right to feel

safe in your own home. That theme will continue to guide our efforts in the Spring Valley community and in any other community

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in our basic mission to prevent disease, dysfunction and premature

death.

Allow me now to turn to the substantive issues regarding Spring

Valley. My testimony will cover the current activities and the recent history of the Department of Health and will then cover the

history and the activities of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Mayor Anthony Williams has assembled an independent group,

the Spring Valley Scientific Advisory Panel. You’ve already heard

from Dr. Walker this morning; and I’m sure he’s covered the composition of that advisory panel.

Mayor Williams is profoundly concerned about the health and

welfare of all District residents and, in particular, with respect to

this hearing, those in the Spring Valley community. Mayor Williams charged that advisory panel with advising the Department of

Health and providing recommendations following the review of

data collected in the assessment of potential exposure to environmental contaminants in Spring Valley.

They were also charged to review the results of biological assessment of exposure to environmental contaminants and to review

morbidity and mortality data relevant to health trends in the

Spring Valley community.

During its first meeting, the panel reviewed information provided

by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Agency for Toxic Substances

and Disease Registry [ATSDR], American University and the Department of Health. The information included existing soil sample

results and the expanded soil sampling plan of the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers. It also included results of the exposure investigation of the American University Child Development Center conducted by ATSDR at the request of the Department of Health.

Additionally, results of an additional exposure investigation conducted by American University of its groundskeeper and maintenance staff, a summary of the health effects associated with arsenic

exposure in the scientific literature and a comparison of the cancer

incidence and mortality trends in the Spring Valley community as

compared to an identified control community.

The Department of Health concurs with and will follow the recommendations of the Mayor’s Spring Valley Scientific Advisory

Panel. Our comprehensive plan will include additional analyses of

the cancer incidence and mortality data from Spring Valley, with

an additional comparison community from Maryland. The Maryland Department of Health has agreed to provide the comparative

data.

In addition, we will provide biomonitoring, which is an exposure

investigation for a sample of the Spring Valley residents. We have

requested that the ATSDR provide technical assistance by conducting an additional exposure investigation of a sample of the Spring

Valley residents.

Further, to complete an additional recommendation of the Spring

Valley Scientific Advisory Panel, the Department of Health will collaborate with the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers to develop a risk communication strategy,

the interpretation and translation of all environmental and healthrelated data collected for the residents of Spring Valley. The Department of Health has kept the Spring Valley community inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:28 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77354.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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formed of the issues by disseminating a quarterly Spring Valley

newsletter.

We have held Spring Valley community meetings and currently

participate on the Army Corps of Engineers Restoration Advisory

Board. The Department of Health has met with the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers and the EPA to discuss the expanded soil sampling plan proposed in the Spring Valley community and has

agreed with the final plan.

Prior to convening the Spring Valley Scientific Advisory Panel,

the Department of Health performed several activities. In August

1998, before the intrusive investigation began, the Department of

Health demanded the use of stronger measures to protect the

neighborhood. The Army Corps of Engineers agreed to use a steel

vapor containment structure over the intrusive investigation area.

From February 1999 to April 2001, intrusive investigation began

at the Korean ambassador’s residence and uncovered 680 pieces of

munitions and laboratory equipment in two separate burial pits.

Several of the items found contained chemical warfare materiel.

In December 2000, the District requested that the Army Corps

of Engineers sample the soil at the CDC. The results indicated that

arsenic levels were elevated and the District requested that the

Army Corps of Engineers conduct an emergency removal of that

soil.

Further testing was done at the CDC where results were as high

as 498 parts per million of arsenic. That’s against a background

level for that area of less than 20.

The District received these results on Wednesday, January 17,

2001. The Department of Health requested technical assistance

from ATSDR on January 18, 2001 to test all children currently enrolled at the Child Development Center for arsenic exposure. The

ATSDR completed hair sampling of all enrolled children at the

CDC on February 1, 2001. DOH met on March 9 with the Army

Corps of Engineers and the EPA to discuss soil sampling options.

Mayor Anthony Williams held the first Spring Valley Scientific Advisory Panel meeting on April 25, 2001 in the District.

Should the results of the Army Corps of Engineers’ expanded soil

sampling reveal other contaminants of concern, the Department of

Health is committed to assessing and mitigating the risks to

human health from cancerous and noncancerous effects.

We would be remiss if we did not identify the important role

being played by other Federal agencies. The Department of Health

appreciates the support that the District has received from the Environmental Protection Agency through the ATSDR. DOH was able

to quickly address the concerns of parents and children enrolled at

the American University Child Development Center. ATSDR conducted an exposure investigation of arsenic and provided biological

monitoring.

I will conclude my statement at this time and submit the remainder of my testimony for the record. Again, thank you, Madam

Chairperson and other members of the subcommittee, for this opportunity to testify. Myself, Mr. Gordon, Dr. Albright and other

members of the senior scientific staff at the Department of Health

are here to respond to your questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Walks follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Dr. Walks. We will be going in order.

I will start off with the ranking member, Mr. Platts, Ms. Watson.

We’ll try to keep our questioning to about 5 minutes and maybe go

more than one round.

So I will start off, then, with Dr. Walks. Arsenic has been found

in Spring Valley in levels requiring immediate removal. I’m going

to ask you, why is arsenic so dangerous? And then I would like to

have you further expand on what other dangerous chemicals have

been found in Spring Valley and could you also explain their dangers as well.

Dr. WALKS. Yes, ma’am. I’ll speak to the specific dangers of arsenic and then I’ll ask Mr. Gordon to talk about some of the other

chemicals and their specific concerns. Flat answer is arsenic causes

cancer. It is dangerous, it is deadly, and with background ranges

in different communities—arsenic is found in pesticides and other

materials that are used in our communities—but background levels

typically range from as low as 2 to 3 parts per million to no higher

than 20. A level of nearly 500 is extremely dangerous, and any

level over 43 requires immediate mitigation. So we are profoundly

concerned about this level of arsenic being found in that community, and Mr. Gordon can talk about some of the other chemicals.

Mrs. MORELLA. This level is—like I see in your testimony—is as

high as 1,200 parts per million.

Dr. WALKS. That’s correct.

Mrs. MORELLA. You’re saying anything over 43 is dangerous?

Dr. WALKS. Anything over 43 requires immediate removal. Even

levels below 43 require mitigation.

Mrs. MORELLA. Has 43 always been the standard?

Dr. WALKS. I don’t know the answer to that. Let me ask Mr. Gordon to address that.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.

Mr. GORDON. Good morning, Chairwoman, and members of the

committee. My name is Theodore Gordon. I’m the chief operating

officer for the Department of Health; 43 is the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency standard for immediate removal. That has been

the standard.

The other chemical of concern certainly is lucite. Lucite is a vesicant which means when it’s exposed, it penetrates the skin and

blisters the skin, and if it’s inhaled, it blisters the lungs and can

cause immediate death.

And certainly the other chemical is mustard gas. Mustard gas is

also a vesicant that also when exposed to the skin or lungs causes

blistering. Mustard takes a longer time but it’s just as deadly as

the lucite. These are the two other chemicals that we have great

concern about in the Spring Valley area in addition to the arsenic.

And, of course, arsenic being a heavy metal, we know that it remains fairly stable in the soil over an extended period of time.

Mrs. MORELLA. What is the life of arsenic in terms of its hazardous potential?

Mr. GORDON. Arsenic, being a heavy metal, has a very long stability. It doesn’t deteriorate over a period of time. That’s why we’re

finding the concentrations that we’re finding today. I would add

that arsenic or arsenicals were found in pesticides. That’s why they

have established what they consider background levels.

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We know that we’re going to find some level of arsenic in the environment because it was in pesticides and it was widely used in

the fifties and sixties until it was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Background levels for arsenic in this

area is around 2 parts per million. It ranges differently, but not to

exceed that 2 parts per million throughout the country.

Here, we’re finding concentrations as high as 1,200 parts per million, as we found at the residence of the American University president’s home, and 498 parts per million we found at the Child Development Center on the AU campus. That gives us great concern.

It has a long stability. It’s something that doesn’t degenerate over

a period of time, and it’s not necessarily mobile. It doesn’t move.

It stays in the soil.

Mrs. MORELLA. So lucite and mustard gas, are they not detected

at a certain point?

Mr. GORDON. Mustard gas and lucite do in fact—will deteriorate

over a period of time, and a lot depends on how they’re contained

and what type of container they’re in, and if it leaks, if it’s exposed,

it does deteriorate. If it’s in a canister that is contained, it could

be highly toxic.

Mrs. MORELLA. What’s the long-term exposure to those chemicals? What does that mean? A public health risk; how high is the

risk over a long term?

Mr. GORDON. Well, certainly when you have exposure, a longterm exposure, the higher the risk. And of course there are—when

we look at the various pathways for possible disease, there are essentially three. One is through inhalation into the lungs. The other

is contact on the skin and absorption through the skin, and the

third is ingestion. And when you have continuous exposure, the

risk certainly goes up.

Mrs. MORELLA. Just let me ask you, are there any other contaminated sites in the District of Columbia?

Mr. GORDON. We have a number of sites that we’re investigating.

Camp Simms was a site that we’re working with the Army Corps

of Engineers, as you may know, has been identified as a major development area for the city. We want to make sure that everything

has been taken care of. Of course the Navy Yard, we have—the

Navy Yard is the only Superfund site in the District of Columbia,

and the District of Columbia is a partner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in cleaning up the Navy Yard as a

Superfund site.

We also have an area up at the University of the District of Columbia which was—the former Bureau of Printing and Engraving

was located there. We have some reason to believe there that there

may be some contamination at that site and also at Catholic University. Catholic University was involved, along with American

University, in the development of chemical warfare materials.

Mrs. MORELLA. It would be interesting if you could submit to us

the degree of contamination of those different areas that you just

cited.

Mr. GORDON. We would——

Mrs. MORELLA. We don’t need them right now, but I——

Mr. GORDON. Certainly.

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Mrs. MORELLA. I just want to ask you, have you—Dalecarlia Reservoir is so close. Have you tested the water at all there?

Mr. GORDON. We have provided the Mayor’s Scientific Advisory

Panel with 20 years of water quality monitoring data, and that is

under review by the Scientific Advisory Panel. We are waiting for

their review of that data to determine what the concentrations and

levels of arsenic may be over that 20-year period of time.

Mrs. MORELLA. I see. Thank you. My time has expired. I now recognize our ranking member, Ms. Norton, for her first questioning.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank all

the witnesses because your testimony has been very useful. I want

to especially thank my own constituents, who I will call our civilian

witnesses, those for whom toxic monitoring is not your day job, for

the service you are rendering to our community: Ms. Shapley of the

Spring Valley Restoration Board and Mr. Harrop of the Spring Valley/Wesley Heights Citizens Association. Your very professional

work is much appreciated not only by your neighbors, but by all

of us.

I want to get to what concerns me most. I think those of you who

have spoken about what should come first are correct when you say

let’s look first to the health concerns, let’s take those off the table

while we continue to remediate; because while it is important for

the community to know that remediation is taking place, this cloud

hangs over us. Therefore, I cannot figure out why all of your testimony seems to reveal that no systematic health survey is in

progress.

On April 2nd, I wrote to Secretary Thompson, after going to

Spring Valley once again and being alerted to problems that had

yet again risen, and in this letter I asked for further help from the

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which of course

has already been helpful to the District.

And let me read to you what I said and the response I got: The

fact that chemical warfare agents and their breakdown byproducts

have been identified in areas that are now overwhelmingly residential suggests that local citizens may have had relatively long-term

exposures to a set of contaminants that is highly unusual.

And then I asked, because of the unique circumstances at Spring

Valley and because the contamination was caused by the Federal

Government, is it appropriate for the Department to partner with

local health officials in an epidemiological study. In addition,

should the initial review reveal the need for more analytical studies to be conducted, I am requesting that the Department provide

both the personnel and funding necessary to meet those needs.

I appreciate the letter I got back from Secretary Thompson in

which he spoke about what had been done. Apparently ATSDR has

been helpful with health consultations, with the exposure investigation at the Child Development Center, and with technical assistance. And he promised further technical assistance.

Well, I tell you, if we are this late in the game and nobody is

doing a systematic health study, systematic health survey, I have

to ask you, why not? I want to know that from the Department of

Health. I want to know if—since it is obviously the indicated thing

to do, since it’s got to be what the community and the city is most

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concerned about, why isn’t a systematic health survey now underway, and are there plans to have such a survey underway now?

Dr. WALKS. Yes, ma’am. There is in fact that plan. It is our top

priority at the Department of Health. We did, in fact, have all of

the children tested at the Child Development Center and the

ATSDR assisted us with that testing, and those children were

found not to have elevated levels; so they were OK.

Ms. NORTON. That’s the kind of ad hoc approach that I’m railing

against here. I don’t know what a systematic epidemiological survey would consist of. I don’t know what a health survey would constitute. All I know is investigating the children at a child care center, only when you get into a panic, is not what I mean.

Dr. WALKS. And you’re right, and that is not how you develop a

systematic plan. What we did was to respond immediately to the

concerns of those children, and I wanted to report that we did that,

because even though we are planning and we have a comprehensive long-term plan, immediate response to children at risk is absolutely what we would do.

Ms. NORTON. I’m well aware of that. Dr. Walks, there was some

testimony—I think it was Dr. Walker—somebody testified that

somebody was doing a control study——

Dr. WALKS. I did.

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. And the control study initially chose

the community next door, next door to Spring Valley. One doesn’t

have to be a physician to know that’s not the way to begin. So we

have incompetence and even excavation to find out if there is—how

remediation should be done. Are we beginning with incompetence

for whatever health survey has already been initiated? Dr. Walker,

was it you who testified and who——

Mr. WALKER. Yeah. And let me comment on that, Ms. Norton. At

our first meeting of the Science Advisory Panel, we had a number

of presentations, and one was from the District of Columbia government. The epidemiologist on our Science Advisory Panel felt

that if the control population was too close to the Spring Valley

community, then there was a high probability that that population

may, and I underscore ‘‘may,’’ have been exposed, and therefore to

get a, quote-unquote, nonexposed population to the Spring Valley

contaminant, we suggested that they select another community at

some distance——

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Walker, that was your testimony. What I’m trying to find out is who selected the community right next to Spring

Valley in the first place? Whose idea was it that the way to do a

control study was to get folks who might have also been affected

by the same toxic waste and use them as a control study?

Mr. WALKER. I don’t think that we could characterize it as a control study. I think it was just an analysis of two adjacent communities.

Ms. NORTON. I see.

Mr. WALKER. And we are calling for the——

Ms. NORTON. Was D.C. doing that analysis? Who was doing that

analysis?

Mr. WALKER. D.C. has the Cancer Registry, and their initial

thrust was to look at two adjacent communities.

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Ms. NORTON. I see. This is why I believe—not only do I want

somebody other than the Army to certify when the remediation is

done, that in fact has been commonly done. I’m not sure that without additional help we can depend upon whatever health survey is

done, and I still don’t know who is supposed to do the health survey. Dr. Walks, perhaps you can tell me that.

Dr. WALKS. The Department of Health is supposed to monitor,

oversee, and certify the results of any health survey. We are ultimately responsible, working as the Mayor’s agent, to ensure that

District residents are safe and have safe homes.

Ms. NORTON. Why hasn’t a health survey been started? Are

funds necessary to do it?

Dr. WALKS. Funds are in fact necessary. And one of the struggles

that we have at the Department of Health, and this is true in other

environmental contamination cases, we think that if our District

environment is contaminated by an outside agent, it’s incumbent

upon them to pay while we supervise the work being done independently, and we have requested additional funds. Now, we have

gotten positive responses thus far and we are going forward with

an investigation.

Ms. NORTON. You have gotten funds from where?

Dr. WALKS. We have gotten technical assistance, and to me

that’s—those are resources from ATSDR. We are continuing to request additional assessment resources from them.

Ms. NORTON. I am very grateful for what HHS and ATSDR has

done. We will have later witnesses from CDC who I think become

very important as we look at what kind of health survey is adequate and how it can be done rapidly.

Dr. WALKS. Let me——

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Gordon, did you have something to——

Dr. WALKS. Let me just add before, Mr. Gordon speaks, one of

the things that we would like is additional resources so that we can

do the sampling ourselves. I think that it’s incumbent upon the

District to be able to satisfy our residents that we are able to certify these findings. We currently don’t have the resources in our lab

to do the samples ourselves, to do the testing ourselves, and we’d

like to be able to do that, and so we are requesting those additional

resources.

Ms. NORTON. Who’s doing it now? Who is——

Mr. GORDON. The sampling is being done by the Army Corps of

Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We have

a grant from the Department of the Army to perform the oversight

of this whole Spring Valley area.

Our grant originally was $250,000, and in 1997 that grant was

cut by the Department of the Army by $80,000. We need additional

scientists on our staff to assist in the monitoring of the expanded

areas and points of interest that are going to be remediated over

the next years.

I have sent a letter to the Assistant Secretary of the Army, requesting reinstatement of that $80,000, and with part of that

money we will be able to do some sampling. Under the Federal authorization, we are only permitted to use 10 percent of that grant

toward sampling of the site, the pulled split samples.

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Certainly we would want to be, Congressman Norton, in the position of pulling split samples to verify the accuracy of the information that’s being collected by the Army and the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency.

Ms. NORTON. But there’s nobody monitoring them and they are

primarily responsible for this problem in the first place.

Mr. GORDON. That’s right.

Ms. NORTON. Why did they limit the amount of money from the

grant you could spend on your own sampling?

Mr. GORDON. I think it’s in the law; it’s in the actual law that

authorizes them to provide us with the funding to do the oversight.

That’s what we’ve been told.

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Shapley had a—— Ms. SHAPLEY. May I offer just—— Ms. NORTON. Yes.

Ms. SHAPLEY [continuing]. To pitch in a little bit on this? One of

your concerns expressed at the outset was the question of timing

and pace of things. One of the things that I’m certainly going to

be bringing before the Advisory Board for us to discuss—and I’ve

shared this with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—is the need for

a clear, what I call ‘‘big block critical path time line’’ that covers

these two very distinctly different tracks of effort and the one track

is the testing for cleanup. That’s the soil sampling that’s going on.

That’s the sampling that’s going on in the central testing area, in

the high-use areas where you get all those high spike numbers because they were high-use areas. And then you have the surrounding community.

It’s important to distinguish we have high-use areas and we have

the peripheral areas. That initial testing provides the only empirical data on which Dr. Walker and the Health Department can proceed with any health survey. That’s how they identify, in fact, how

to construct a statistical sample for any of the—and there are actually several—components to this health survey question.

So I want to make clear, there is a relationship between these

two tracks of effort; and you have to get to an end point in one,

intersect it with the other, and then you can go forward to stage

two.

I don’t want to belabor this too much, but I think that needs to

be the essential context to take away from this. We have 1,200

households. We have less than 700 that have signed up for right

of entry to do the first round of testing.

Ms. NORTON. Why are less than 700 signed up?

Ms. SHAPLEY. Well, I think part of it is that there was a great

flood of interest—and the Army can testify to that—that got the response to an appeal for people to send in their right-of-entry forms

which the Army mailed out to every household. And then I think

there was so much information flowing through the mail slots that

people, in effect, they got set aside by a number of people. And I

know the Army is struggling with how to now push up that number so that they get the 1,200 rights of entry, because if they don’t

have that, they can’t get the 1,200 unit data set, which is what we

all need for, in effect, any of this assessment to go forward. And

certainly the community board is very concerned about this

progress.

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I want to make one last remark on timing here. There are seasons of the year where it’s appropriate to do outdoor field work. We

are now down to August 1, prime time, running past us to do outdoor field work.

We don’t have enough people signed up. We are not getting

through enough, in my view, of this stage 1 testing, so that when

I look at the big picture of the calendar, what I’m looking at is

what’s going to get accomplished in the prime time’s field work seasons versus what gets done during the down time in-house—indoor

seasons, so to speak. And so that becomes another controlling limit

as far as I understand it, on, in fact, accomplishing these various

things you’re talking about.

Mrs. MORELLA. The gentlewoman’s time has expired. Mr. Platts.

Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I again want to

thank all panelists for your testimony and the very merit-based arguments you make for the need for very timely and responsible action to be taken. And it’s long past being overdue. It needs to move

forward very quickly.

I have one specific question, Dr. Walks, on the assessments you

have done. And I understand you’re still developing the comprehensive, but for the Child Development Center you mentioned testing

the children at the center. How, I guess, long has the center been

in operation at that facility and did you test adults who work at

the facility who have worked there for any length of time, more

than—the children kind of rotate through the center for a year or

two, I would imagine, versus employees that have been there for

many years, if it’s a longstanding facility. I’m not sure it is.

Dr. WALKS. We did, in fact, pull hair samples for the children to

test them. And I’m not sure if we did test the adults there. I don’t

think we did. Did we?

Mr. GORDON. That is being handled through American University. They have hired their own toxicologist, and we have provided

them with the data. We not only collected hair samples, but we

also did urine samples as well, because arsenic has a tendency to

collect in the urine, particularly of younger people. That all came

back negative. We advised the American University of this data

and they were proceeding with their own employees and own separate testing of the workers at the Child Development facility and

other maintenance workers as well.

Mr. PLATTS. At this point from the adults who maybe have more

years of exposure at the facility, we don’t have any data

available——

Dr. WALKS. We actually do have some. That’s why it’s nice to

have a team of senior scientists running around behind you. We

did offer testing to the adults who worked in the day care facility.

Four of them did agree to participate, and their test results came

back clean. And American University did also offer testing for their

grounds keepers. Thus far, both the children and the adults that

we tested came back with a clean bill of health.

Mr. PLATTS. OK. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you Mr, Platts. Ms. Watson is recognized

for questions.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And I want to say

hello to Dr. Walks, and it’s good to see you again.

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I have some questions that run along the same lines as my colleagues. Is there a plan to do long-term studies? Because sometimes the contamination doesn’t show up, and over a period of

years there will be a development. So what is your plan in terms

of long-term studies?

Dr. WALKS. We actually do have that, and I think that Dr. Walker can maybe speak to the Scientific Advisory Panel’s efforts in

that area. But, clearly, when you’re looking at cancer-causing

agents, short-term studies only show you exposure. Long-term

studies show you effects. So you’re going exactly where you need

to go, and maybe Dr. Walker can talk about some of those recommendations.

Mr. WALKER. Well, I think that the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Panel includes doing further studies. But I think

the most important——

Ms. WATSON. On that point, on the same population that you

have taken samples, are you going to do further studies on the people whose samples you’ve already taken?

Mr. WALKER. It is our recommendation. Now, there’s always two

approaches when you’re dealing with environmental issues. You

can start with the disease and work back and look at the environment, or you can start with the environment and work back and

look at the disease.

Ms. WATSON. It’s the human element I’m concerned about.

Mr. WALKER. Yes. Here we have said let’s see what the soil samples, soil analysis, show; and then let’s determine from that where

we need to do biomonitoring to determine what may be in the bodies of those people who live on those sites. The Cancer Register,

that is, under the supervision of the District of Columbia government, will give us some indication as to whether or not the incidence of cancer in the Spring Valley area is higher or lower than

in some other community where there is a similar socioeconomic

profile. We have to match these by socioeconomic profiles.

Let me further add that this is a complex issue because the primary concern has been arsenic, and it’s very difficult to characterize arsenic as a single element. There are many forms of this kind

of compound, and we have asked—recommended that the Corps of

Engineers try to sort out what specific component arsenic component we’re talking about here, because these components vary. And

unless we are able to specify which form we are talking about, we

may reach some conclusions that are not valid, so——

Ms. WATSON. Dr. Walker and Dr. Watson, anyone else that can

respond, will you be recommending long-term studies on the population that were tested in an ad hoc way? Now, when you finally

decipher what you’re testing for, arsenic or any other chemical that

contaminates, will there be long-range studies on the same people

that were tested: children, adults, or whoever?

Mr. WALKER. From the Science Advisory Panel standpoint, I

don’t think we have a sufficient amount of data to be able to make

that determination now. I think we need more——

Ms. WATSON. Thank you. You just answered my question. Is

there any concern about doing fetal monitoring, women who are in

their childbearing years, women who are pregnant? Is there any

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concern about them, and will they then be tested while they’re

pregnant?

Mr. WALKER. Again, we need to be more specific about the form

of arsenic we’re talking about.

Ms. WATSON. So I guess the answer is no?

Dr. WALKS. Let me answer the question this way.

Ms. WATSON. Please.

Dr. WALKS. We have come into this whole Spring Valley issue,

I think, years late. The Department of Health first had resources

to investigate this only in late 1995, as has been previously testified to. Assessments at the site were safe on more than one occasion.

We are beginning to understand the severity of this problem that

we have, and we are committed, and I know that the Mayor of the

District of Columbia is committed to each resident feeling safe in

their home at all times. We will investigate exactly what compounds we have, and when we determine the best scientific course

of action, we will take it. We will take it aggressively. We will aggressively seek funding to support those efforts. And any individual

who is at risk, we will give that individual the opportunity to be

checked now and to be followed, and we will advise them of what

they need to be concerned about down the road, so if they move out

of the area they will have information.

To that end, we are publishing a quarterly Spring Valley Committee Advisory newsletter to let them know of our findings, and

we have held several community meetings and will continue to

meet with them. The concerns you raise are the same concerns we

share at the Department of Health and we will address those.

Ms. WATSON. You then will be developing a protocol. I would like

to suggest that we do long-term studies on the Spring Valley residents, all of them.

You talked about the need for 1,200 right of entry, and I was

concerned about the outreach. You just told me that you’re publishing every quarter. I think we need to get public health personnel

involved, to go into communities, go into homes, interpret what’s

in that flyer.

Dr. WALKS. You’re exactly right. This is not Field of Dreams: If

you build it, they will come.

And the Department of Health has a clear understanding of the

need to be out of our offices in the community. To that end, our

senior scientists including, Dr. Albright, Dr. Stokes, who is here in

the audience with us today—we have been in that community at

several community meetings, and we are available not just for

technical assistance to other scientists, but if community members

have questions, they can call the Department of Health. We will

come to a meeting of 2 people or 200 people to help people understand best how to stay healthy in the District.

Ms. WATSON. Sometimes community people don’t even know the

questions to ask. So you have to take a proactive approach and answer questions before they ask.

Dr. WALKS. Absolutely.

Ms. WATSON. The Cancer Registry is after the fact. We need to

study the people who lived in that area, be able to identify—you’re

going to do your scientific research, but you need a protocol and

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you also need to start looking at the effects on women during their

childbearing years, so the fetal monitoring comes in.

Let me just end with this. I have seen the same situation happen

throughout the world when we have abandoned bases. I just came

back from Bermuda where we abandoned our naval base there. We

abandon and leave it like it is when we leave. We don’t treat it.

And I would think that we need to go the next step, too, and look

at all of our abandoned bases and set up a protocol of plan. It is

affecting the population there.

So here I would like to see, when you finish your scientific discussion and you identify what the contaminants are, and you are

able to trace some effects, that we set up a treatment modality

also. I always hear about the testing, but I don’t hear about the

followup. And so I would suggest that in the District of Columbia,

that your concerns—and I want to compliment the Mayor, but I

think your concerns ought to be out there, and there ought to be

recommendations to other departments, and please identify what

you see as a treatment modality for those who have been exposed.

Dr. WALKS. If you’ll permit me just to expand on one thing that

I’m confident, that you were alluding to.

Ms. WATSON. Please.

Dr. WALKS. This goes beyond letting people know if they have

been exposed to a chemical that may burn their skin or injure their

lungs or may cause cancer. There is a psychological component

which is absolutely included in a comprehensive health approach to

people who feel that their community is not safe, their home is not

safe, their children can’t play outside in the yard. And we are absolutely focusing on that as well, and I want to thank you for bringing up that comprehensive approach, because with the District’s

Department of Health, we have moved out of our offices. We are

out in the community. We have taken experts to the community to

answer questions for individuals. We will continue to do so and I

appreciate your support in that effort.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Watson.

I’d like to ask Dr. Walker, as chair of the Mayor’s Scientific

Panel on Spring Valley, I’d like to ask you what the status is of

each of the recommendations that the scientific panel made. I do

not notice any timeframes, but I trust from what we know and

what we have learned that there is urgency in implementing the

recommendations.

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. The recommendation for biomonitoring—the District of Columbia government has contacted the Federal Agency for Toxic Substance and

Disease Registry, because this is the agency that is capable of providing the necessary support to do that; so that is underway.

The District of Columbia government, on our recommendation to

select another control population that is not so close to Spring Valley, they have now—the government has now contacted the State

of Maryland to ask their assistance in identifying a community in

the State of Maryland that may be of similar socioeconomic status

that they can use as a control population. It’s our understanding

that the risks—I’m sorry.

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Mrs. MORELLA. Just any time line on that, on identifying that

Maryland community that has some similarities, but again I hope

would not be so close that it would be identical—— Mr. WALKER. That process is well underway, and I’ve had a

verbal report that the data are beginning to come back from the

State of Maryland. So that’s well underway.

Mrs. MORELLA. The other recommendations?

Mr. WALKER. The other recommendation was one that the Corps

of Engineers began to look at specifying, identifying specific arsenic

components, since arsenic is one of the compounds that has caused

much concern, for obvious reasons. It does cause cancer.

The Corps of Engineers is beginning to move to make some specific identifications with respect to that recommendation. I should

point out that we did want to make sure that the agency, the three

agencies, District of Columbia government, Corps of Engineers, and

EPA, worked with the community to help the community understand this whole problem.

We know that there was concern there about reproductive and

developmental problems, but as we looked at epidemiological literature, there is no evidence to suggest that arsenic may cause any

productive effects. So we believe that these three agencies should

help the community understand what we know about the health effects of the various contaminants and it’s our belief that is underway.

We have not scheduled a second meeting, another meeting of the

Scientific Advisory Panel, because we wanted to have the Corps of

Engineers soil sampling results before we called a second meeting.

Some members of our panel are from out of town, and we’re trying

to make sure we make maximum use of their time. So if we ask

them to come back for a second meeting, we’d like to have as much

data as possible. So I think it’s fair to say that progress is being

made on our recommendations. We have not had a formal report

that says we are doing X, Y and Z on these recommendations, but

I understand from the District officials that report will be forthcoming to our panel.

Mrs. MORELLA. We’d be very interested in seeing that, and I’m

just trying to promote the sense of urgency, and sometimes when

we set time lines we tend to follow them a bit more closely.

I would like to ask the District of Columbia officials as well as

the community to agree to work with this subcommittee as we

move along and am hoping that you would respond promptly to any

of our inquiries and keep us informed of what’s going on, knowing

of our interest.

I know that you’d love to make a comment, Mr. Harrop, and I’d

like to recognize you.

Mr. HARROP. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to say that

I’m disappointed that, as I said earlier, one of the major problems

in Spring Valley is a lack of uncertainty, a feeling that people have.

They don’t have the information, they don’t know how badly they

or their families may have been affected by these chemicals.

I thought that Mrs. Norton’s question about when we’re going to

get on with the health studies was really not very satisfactorily answered. The answer was that it’s a very complicated problem; that

there seems to be an argument among the Army and the Agency

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for Toxic Study and Disease Registry and the District as to who’s

going to pay for it.

I simply cannot accept that it’s difficult to locate, say, in Montgomery County, in your constituency, a community which is very

similar to Spring Valley. This is a small community. It’s not a very

difficult problem. What people would like to know is that a study

is going on. I mean, we’ve asked Maryland for suggestions as to a

comparable community. I just don’t think that’s a very good answer. I think there’s no reason why a study can’t go on very expeditiously and satisfy people as to what the incidence of the problem

is. I hope we can do that.

Mrs. MORELLA. I appreciate very much your representing the urgency of it. And that’s one of the objectives of this subcommittee

is to move it forward, to get the time lines to make sure that we

do have the study done as quickly as possible.

Yes, Dr. Walks.

Dr. WALKS. If I may, Madam Chairperson, we have worked very

closely with the State of Maryland. Georges Benjamin, who is my

counterpart for the State of Maryland, has been extremely supportive. We have identified a community in Potomac, MD to use as a

control community. That study has in fact been completed, and we

will be turning those results over to the advisory panel Dr. Walker

chairs so they can review that at their next meeting.

So things are underway. Things are moving. I am never going to

be satisfied that they’re moving fast enough. I’m sure you will not

be either. We will move with as much deliberate speed as we can,

and every opportunity to increase that speed, we will ask you to

support us and be happy to work closely with you.

Mrs. MORELLA. We want to very much. And, Dr. Walker, when

is the next meeting.

Mr. WALKER. I’m sorry?

Mrs. MORELLA. When is the next meeting of——

Mr. WALKER. We would hope that we could convene the next

meeting in September, early September, after the summer vacation, bearing in mind that we have some academic types on our

panel and some are off in foreign countries doing some work. But

we would hope by the first of September we would at least have

some of the results of the Corps of Engineers’ soil sampling, as well

as a report of the District of Columbia government, so we can determine what are the next steps, and whether or not what has been

done is sufficient to provide the information to draw some conclusions about the health and environmental effects——

Mrs. MORELLA. If the members of the subcommittee would indulge me just one moment, I would like to ask maybe Mr. Gordon

and Dr. Albright, we have this aerial map here; I wondered if you

might just point out to us what some of those sites are, where

there are the munitions and where there is the danger of contamination.

Mr. GORDON. Madam Chairperson, I’d also like to point out that

we have received a letter from Dr. Henry Faulk, the Assistant Surgeon General with the Agency for Toxic Substance Disease Registry, committed to continue biomonitoring of the residents of

Spring Valley and working with the District of Columbia Department of Health. That letter is dated July 21, 2001.

104

Mrs. MORELLA. Excellent. Good. They don’t know whether they

can dig, whether they can go into the yard, what’s safe and what

is not. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Dr. ALBRIGHT. Madam Chair, Delegate Norton, my name is Richard Albright. I’m the District’s remedial project manager for this

site. I have counterparts from the Army Corps of Engineers and

EPA, also called remedial project managers.

This is a 1918 aerial photograph, taken on August 17 of that

year, showing the site. The first thing I’d like to call to your attention is the great number of buildings. This was the world’s second

largest chemical weapons facility at that time. It had 1,200 scientists and engineers, 700 support personnel; and the adjacent site,

Camp Leach, which I will indicate here, trained 100,000 engineers

during the 2 years it operated, during the 2 years of World War

I.

Some key features—the main labs, were located in this area on

the American University campus. One of the key features that was

found in 1986 was this probable pit here. We believe this is the

hole called Hades, although we can’t definitively prove that, but

we’re still searching for this particular pit.

There are also two sets of circles up here. These are circular

trenches. They were meant to simulate the trench warfare in Europe. They were built in a circle so that when they detonated a

shell with gas, it wouldn’t matter which way the wind was blowing,

it would get to the trench. That’s why they’re in a circular fashion.

They would detonate from 1 to 24 shells at a time. They would

stake dogs out in the trenches at 10 foot intervals and then see the

effects on the animals of the poison gas. There is a smoke test

going on as we speak. That was a major offensive that was planned

for the Spring of 1919. We were going to burn 4 million smoke candles. We had the prevailing wind to our backs across the trench in

Europe, and the theory was this smoke would blow into the enemy’s positions. It would penetrate the——

Mrs. MORELLA. Where is that located? I mean, tell me where— I see that, but tell me where—give me more of a graphic—— Dr. ALBRIGHT. Between 52nd Street and Dalecarlia Parkway, approximately. We know exactly where it is. We have a map of the

area that has that site specifically located. But that smoke contained arsenic, most likely, because of the spring offensive that was

planned. The major smoke testing that was done was done at the

Montgomery County Country Club, and the big site was in Berlin,

MD.

Perhaps a large number of those smoke candles were buried

there in Maryland. The little knob off on the northern trenches is

where the original 141 munitions were found back in 1993 by a

contractor, employee of Miller Co., putting in, I believe, a water

main to a new house that was under construction at that time.

Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Miller, did you know about anything before

1993 about any exposures from munitions?

Mr. MILLER. [Indicating no.]

Dr. ALBRIGHT. OK. Great. Thank you. Continue.

Dr. ALBRIGHT. This is the Sedgewick trenches down here. This

is an area where we’re looking very intently for a similar burial

105

site of munitions. We think we have now located a probable location for that.

A few other features. You see these little squares? These are persistency test areas where chemical warfare material was sprayed

on the ground to see how long it would last. Generally from aerial

photographs, light colored areas denote disturbed ground. It might

just be an area where cars travel. Or it might be an area where

somebody dug something to bury something, or it might be an area

of contamination that prevents the grass from growing again, as in

these persistency test areas. The person who probably prepared

this for your committee is probably one of the top people in the

world, Terry Slonecker of the EPA. He’s been working with us for

the last year or so—— Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.

Dr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. Putting in an inordinate amount of

time to try to identify various areas.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Dr. Albright. That gives us a pretty

good idea of the contaminated areas.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Madam Chair. I see a problem here

that I think we’re going to have to get ahold of. When it comes to

the cleanup, I want to make sure that nothing interferes with the

cleanup and the remediation itself. So that is done by the Federal

Government; it would be very hard for the Federal Government to

side step that. You know, they did it. They have to clean it up. And

they can’t look to the D.C. government, they can’t look to Mr. Miller. They know they did it. Only they have the expertise and

they’re doing it. OK.

Ergo, let’s then look at a problem for which the Federal Government is equally responsible: the health effects on the community.

Now, there, even though the arrow points in exactly the same place

it did when it came to the contamination, there we do not have the

same focus as we had, because it’s just one step removed. It’s in

the population. You don’t know where it is. And, therefore, we do

not have the same Federal focus on the people as we have on the

sites. That is dangerous. What we do instead is we leave it to the

D.C. government to catch as catch can, get grants, seek technical

assistance, but depend mostly on its own resources to deal with

that health track of this problem.

One thing this hearing has revealed to me is that the Federal

Government has accepted its responsibility on one track and not

entirely accepted its responsibility on the other track. That concerns me. And I believe we have an obligation not to simply look

to the Department of Health and say what are you doing now and

have them scramble among the agencies to do what needs to be

done on the health effects for which the Federal Government is

equally and exclusively responsible, while the Federal Government,

having been unable to move away from the contamination itself,

shucks and jibes on the health effects.

I am very grateful to what the HHS has done to the ASTDR because they have been very forthcoming in that regard. We will hear

testimony from the CDC. I am certainly going to be meeting after

this hearing with the agencies involved, because I think that without a single appropriation from the Congress, that there is an exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:28 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00109 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77354.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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isting obligation, once the Federal Government has accepted responsibility for the contamination, to accept responsibility for the

health effect. I mean, it follows like night and day, and we just

have to make sure that the logic is understood.

As to the health—what the city is doing now to try to scramble

to get the personnel and to get the money, my own sense is that

we simply must do it fast, do the health survey fast, and make sure

that it is done independently. And we may not be able to wait until

the District is able to hire all of the independent experts it should.

And what I’d like the District to help me do is to figure out what

is the fastest way to get an independent health survey initiated immediately.

Now, I have a question for the District. Mrs. Morella asked about

other communities that may have been involved, and we have

heard about other communities, and I indicated in my opening

statement that I did not believe that the Federal Government went

like a laser beam to American University and might not have done

damage elsewhere.

In your testimony we heard that at least there is some reason

to look at at least three other areas: Camp Simms, some areas near

UDC that were vaguely named, and areas near Catholic University. Now, there is no need to unduly panic any other community,

and one of the ways to keep from panicking a community is to systematically look at what has happened so that people know that

there’s no reason to be panicked.

I would like you to describe what is being done now, exactly what

is the nature of the effort now at Camp Simms in which you’re

about to do a whole big number, a whole big project that’s been

outstanding for years—Camp Simms, the area near UDC, and

Catholic University—what is being done and who is doing it?

Mr. GORDON. Go ahead, Richard.

Dr. ALBRIGHT. I’ll respond to that. Camp Simms, first of all, we

got in that site when the Federal parkland was being remediated.

We had a partnering effort with the Corps and the EPA. I believe

we successfully remediated the Federal park there called Oxen Run

Park. We removed 36 ordnance items out of that site. That was the

target area.

Ms. NORTON. When was that done? When were those ordnances

removed?

Dr. ALBRIGHT. From 1995 on. In fact, the first week I came to

work on this project I was out there. We removed substantial quantities of lead from the backstop areas for the small arms ranges out

there; and areas that we could not remove the lead, we covered up

in such a way that children can no longer be exposed.

The other portion at Camp Simms is owned by the District of Columbia government. There are some reported burials there. That

work was done before the District was involved with the project.

We were not satisfied with the work that was done. We’ve gotten

back to the Corps of Engineers on that. We have a good partnering

relationship with them. In the past 2 months they have reanalyzed

the data from the metal detectors that were used over that area.

We have located and come to agreement on 13 more potential areas

of munition burials up there, and talks are underway now as to try

to excavate those areas.

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With respect to UDC, that was formerly the Harry Diamond

Fuse Laboratory where, among other things, our proximity fuse,

which was very effective in World War II, was developed. We know

that there were many contaminants up in that area, and ordnance

was found up there when they built the engineering building at

UDC. We are going to be looking at that site. EPA has promised

to fund the preliminary assessment for that site. I believe that preliminary assessment has already been done in draft form. We have

not seen it yet. We expect it within a week or two. From that document, we will then go on to do whatever soil sampling magnetometer work, metal detector work is necessary.

Catholic University was a small research spin-offsite from American University. Two very toxic chemical warfare agents were developed there, lewisite and ricin. They had approximately 35 chemists working there. From their reports we suspected that there may

be some contaminants left. Anecdotally, we’ve been told that jugs

of chemical warfare material were left in the chemistry building

when the site was closed. These were found some number of years

later. They were then buried near the chemistry building up there.

A number of years later again, putting a walkway through, they hit

one of the jugs with a pick-ax while digging a foundation.

We have been unable to get any more information on that site.

But there’s a dump site already near there. We have already done

some preliminary aerial photo recon work on that site, and we’ll be

looking to take some soil samples in that area as well.

Ms. NORTON. Are these all the areas that could conceivably have

had munitions dumped?

Dr. ALBRIGHT. Yes. We have approximately 33 sites in the District of Columbia that we’re looking at. According to the Department of Defense, the District of Columbia ranks 10th among all

States for potential buried ordnance sites, not necessarily in any

way the amount of ordnance, but rather just purely numbers of

sites. Our site might be 30 rounds. Some other State’s site may be

3,000 rounds, but in numbers of sites we rank 10th among all

States.

Ms. NORTON. I think the Chair also asked about water. I do

know that over and over again, we’re told that the District of Columbia has one of the highest cancer rates in the country. It always

ranks way above anything anyone would expect. Could you tell me,

I want to know first what is being done, specifically what is being

done—we were told something was being done—to look at the

water supply and whether you think so many areas where buried

munitions are located might have contributed to a higher rate of

cancer in the District of Columbia that we see here than in other

places.

Dr. WALKS. I think we absolutely have those concerns in a State

that is 70 square miles and ranks 10th in States with respect to

number of sites. That means we have probably a lot more sites per

square mile than maybe any other place. We do have a high cancer

rate. We have a cancer registry. That’s a tremendous step in the

right direction with respect to our ability to track it.

But as a physician, you don’t want to track cancer. It means that

you’re waiting until people are ill and then identifying a level of

illness.

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We want to protect health. The Mayor’s goal is to make the District the healthiest city in America. We share that mission, we

share that vision. And the extent of the work that Dr. Albright has

outlined is, I think, evidence of that. We do have to stretch our resources, but that’s OK. We will stretch and do whatever we can to

identify potential health hazards in the District and mitigate those

health hazards. Part of our purpose today is to impress upon you

that commitment and ask for your support with respect to additional resources, but we——

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Walks, what is being done on the water supply

right now with respect to effects of these munitions around the District of Columbia?

Dr. WALKS. We actually do check groundwater, and we check

groundwater contamination in a lot of different areas for a lot of

different chemicals. Though we don’t use groundwater, we’re exposed to it and we’re exposed to soil. That’s why when we talk

about collecting samples, we talk about comprehensive sampling

collection, doing split samples. We can’t afford to trust other people

to do the work that we have to do in the District to keep District

residents safe. It’s our responsibility, and we want the ability and

the resources to do those split samples and be able to look District

residents in the eye and tell them that they’re safe in their homes.

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Gordon.

Mr. GORDON. Yes. As Dr. Walks has indicated, we have no evidence, based on the review of drinking water data, that there’s any

contamination levels of our drinking water with arsenic, none

whatsoever.

We have requested that the Corps of Engineers do groundwater

testing for us to determine if there are concentrations of arsenic in

our groundwater. One would say, why do you want to test the

groundwater, because we don’t drink the groundwater? We never

know at what point in time we’re going to have to access that

groundwater. If we had a bioterrorist attack and it affected our

drinking water system, we may have to rely on our groundwater.

So, therefore, we’ve requested to the Baltimore District that in

the Spring Valley area we test the groundwater to determine if in

fact it is contaminated, and we’re waiting for a response from the

Corps. But there is no evidence—and I want to repeat, no evidence—whatsoever of our drinking water being contaminated with

arsenic.

Ms. NORTON. It’s very important for the community to understand that.

Mr. Miller, could I ask you whether or not this very desirable

neighborhood, as you called it, with very high property values,

meaning you pay a lot of taxes to the District of Columbia and to

the Federal Government—may I ask whether or not property values have been affected by this controversy?

Mr. MILLER. Based on the real estate data that I’ve been able to

collect from the Multiple Regional Information System, which is

the warehouse of real estate sales in Spring Valley, the answer is

no. Property values have gone up, and gone up significantly in the

last 5 years.

Ms. NORTON. That’s very good news.

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Finally, Mr. Harrop, you made a statement that I wish you

would explain when you were assessing this controversy. You indicated that American University may have been complicit along

with the Federal agencies. I note that American University has

sued, which doesn’t tell us all we need to know, of course. But what

made you think that American University has been—may have

been, sorry—complicit?

Mr. HARROP. Well, under the Superfund legislation, the owners

or operators of property which may have possible contamination

are required to report that formally to EPA, which triggers an articulated series of remedial actions.

In 1986, the American University as well as the Army Corps of

Engineers clearly knew that, because they had information from

their historical survey of the records and their review of overhead

photography which showed that there was this potential problem.

And yet they decided not to report it—as the law required them

to—to the EPA. That is what I meant by complicit.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mrs. MORELLA. I want to thank the panel. We’ve kept you for a

long time. You have been great in terms of telling us about the actions. I reiterate that we do want to work with you so that we recognize the urgency and come about with some resolve for the safety

and security of the citizenry. And so we thank you. Thank you very

much for being with us, Dr. Walks, Mr. Gordon, Dr. Albright, Dr.

Walker, Ms. Shapley, Mr. Harrop, and Mr. Miller. Thank you.

So, now the second panel. We will not spend quite as much time

with the second panel. We have two people who will be presenting:

Thomas Voltaggio, the Acting Regional Administrator, the Environmental Protection Agency, Region III; and Rear Admiral Robert

Williams, Director of the Division of Health Assessment and Consultation, the Agency for Toxic Substances/Disease Registry.

Before you sit down, I’m going to have you stand to be sworn in.

Mr. Voltaggio and Admiral Williams, if you’ll raise your right

hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you for your affirmative responses. We’ll

now commence.

Well, Admiral Williams, since you are sitting to my left, the right

of the audience, would you like to begin, then?

STATEMENTS OF REAR ADMIRAL ROBERT WILLIAMS, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF HEALTH ASSESSMENT AND CONSULTATION, AGENCY FOR TOXIC SUBSTANCES AND DISEASE REGISTRY; AND THOMAS C. VOLTAGGIO, ACTING REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REGION III

Admiral WILLIAMS. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman and members of the subcommittee, I am Bob Williams, the

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and I thank you

for this opportunity to provide you with testimony on the activities

of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry [ATSDR],

at the Child Development Center at the American University, a

day care facility.

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ATSDR is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services. It is the lead public health agency responsible for

implementing the health-related provisions of the Comprehensive

Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act

[CERCLA]. ATSDR’s mission is to prevent exposure and adverse

health effects and diminished quality of life associated with exposure to hazardous substances from waste sites, unplanned releases,

and other sources of pollution present in the environment.

On January 18, 2001, ATSDR participated in a conference call

with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army,

and the District of Columbia Department of Health. The Army indicated that elevated concentrations of arsenic were detected in

surface soil samples recently collected from the playground of the

Child Development Center at American University, which I will

call AU-CDC. Parents of children attending the day care facility

were notified of this finding, and they expressed concern for the

health of their children. The Department of Health asked ATSDR

for assistance in addressing the parents’ concerns.

ATSDR reviewed the request as we would a proposal for the

Agency to conduct an exposure investigation. An exposure investigation is one approach that the Agency uses to better characterize

potential exposures to hazardous substances, generally through biomedical testing. The request was evaluated against ATSDR’s criteria for conducting an EI, which include the following: One, can

an exposure population be identified?

Two, does a data gap exist that affects the ability to interpret

whether or not a health hazard exists?

Three, can the data gap be addressed by an EI?

And, four, how would the results of an EI impact public health

decisionmaking.

ATSDR determined that the request met the Agency’s criteria for

conducting an EI, and, accordingly, agreed to conduct an EI for the

children currently attending AU-CDC. In addition, ATSDR agreed

to include the adult staff at the AU-CDC in its EI.

Officials at American University had relocated the AU-CDC to

another location on campus as soon as the contamination was

brought to their attention. Therefore, children and AU-CDC staff

had no known current exposure to arsenic at the time of the EI request. After a person is exposed to arsenic, the arsenic is rapidly

metabolized and excreted in the urine within a few days. Because

the children had no known recent exposure to arsenic, it would not

be useful to test their urine samples for arsenic.

Arsenic is deposited in the hair root as the hair grows. Therefore,

measuring the arsenic concentration in a length of hair provides an

indication of arsenic exposure over the life of the hair. ATSDR collected 2-inch lengths of hair from the EI participants, which corresponds to approximately 5 months’ of hair growth.

With the assistance of the Department of Health and AU-CDC

staff, written informed-consent forms were signed by parents or

guardians of the children. The children ranged from 21⁄2 through

51⁄2 years of age. About half of the children that attended AU-CDC

for 7 months or less; the remainder had attended for a year or

more.

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During January 31st through February 1, 2001, ATSDR staff collected hair samples from 28 children and 4 adults at the AU-CDC.

Approximately one-half gram of hair was cut from the back of the

head, at the nape of the neck. These samples were sent to a clinical

medical laboratory for analyses; results were available in March

2001. Of the hair samples tested, none were found to have elevated

levels of arsenic.

AU-CDC staff and parents of children who participated in the EI

were notified of the test results, and ATSDR staff were available

to those participants at a March meeting. The ATSDR issued a

written public report which summarized the findings of the EI.

ATSDR has since been petitioned to conduct a public health assessment for the Spring Valley site, and we have also been requested by the government of the District of Columbia to assist

them with an expansion of our previous exposure investigation. We

are collecting information needed to respond appropriately to both

of these requests.

Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my testimony, and I would

be happy to answer questions that you may have or those of your

fellow subcommittee members.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Admiral Williams.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Williams follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Now, Mr. Voltaggio.

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Morella and members of the committee. I am Thomas Voltaggio. I am the Acting Regional Administrator for EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Office. I’m

pleased to be here today to discuss EPA’s role in the Spring Valley

cleanup.

EPA’s active involvement with Spring Valley started when Region III, in conjunction with the Army, conducted an emergency response to Spring Valley in 1993. Since then, the Agency has provided critical skills and technical expertise in what is an extraordinarily complex cleanup effort. The Agency has decided to test for

a full suite of possible contaminants, and this decision helped in

eventually uncovering the arsenic problem. Our efforts to promote

keeping the site open for further investigation and gathering the

right data for an accurate risk assessment have also been important factors in the cleanup effort.

In January 1993, a utility contractor working in the Spring Valley development encountered buried ordnance. A textbook emergency response followed, with the Army, EPA, and the District government responding. DOD sent an emergency response team that

removed 141 ordnance-related items in what became known as the

phase I cleanup. The Corps was ready a month later to start a

phase II longer-term cleanup effort.

Arsenic is a breakdown product from some of the chemical weapons that were used at American University. The Corps did not

sample for arsenic, however, because there are other unique compounds that would provide a clearer indication of warfare agents.

EPA, however, decided to test for all hazardous substances, including arsenic. It wasn’t until much later in the history of Spring Valley that this decision would prove important.

By 1995, hundreds of properties have been investigated, but only

a few more ordnance pieces were found, and there have been no

discovery of burial pits. More than 250 soil samples have been tested, but no chemical or explosive agents were found. A few metals

were identified, but a risk assessment concluded that additional

cleanup was not required.

An investigation of suspected mustard gas in the soil was still

underway at what was called the ‘‘Captain Rankin’’ property. The

Corps proposed that all the other locations in Spring Valley be considered as Operable Unit 1, and that the Captain Rankin area be

classified as Operable Unit 2. The Army then concluded that no

further action was required with respect to chemical warfare materials or munitions for Operable Unit 1. The Corps documented this

rationale and put it out for public comment. Both EPA and the District supported this decision.

As the work on Operable Unit 2 continued, that is, the Captain

Rankin property, D.C. government undertook an independent archival search that turned up new information, including a possible

mislocation of a burial pit. In the spring of 1997, the Corps, EPA

and D.C. agreed to form a Spring Valley project team, and EPA

wrote to the Corps, noting that closeout of the entire Spring Valley

site should be deferred until resolution of the concerns raised by

the District of Columbia.

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By January 1998, the Corps became convinced that D.C. was correct about the location of the possible burial pit. It created, then,

an Operable Unit 3 to focus on the Korean ambassador’s residence,

including a soil sampling plan. At the same time, the EPA prepared a plan to sample and resample adjacent properties.

Several different strands of the story were finally starting to converge. Using D.C.’s information, the team found the burial pit on

the Ambassador’s property, and an intensive and gradually expanding circle of soil sampling was finding arsenic and leading to the

eventual decision to assess every property in Spring Valley.

As part of the massive sampling and resampling efforts that currently are underway at 1,200 locations, every homeowner will be

mailed a copy of the results from his or her property within 45

days of the sample being taken.

EPA’s original photographic interpretation work is still helping

to guide our work today. I would also like to acknowledge the work

of other organizations that have been involved in the cleanup effort.

From the time that I arrived at the site in 1993—and I arrived

there on January 6th, the day after the ordnance was found—I

have been extremely impressed by the hard work and dedication of

the Corps in the Spring Valley cleanup. They have provided a high

level of expertise to this effort. The District of Columbia also deserves special praise. The research conducted by some of its staff

in 1995 and 1996 has given other team members extremely valuable information.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I’ll be happy to answer

any questions at the appropriate time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Voltaggio follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Voltaggio. I’ll start off

with you and ask you a question that probably is a simple one for

you, but I think important to our discussion. And that is what is

a Superfund site, in your definition, and why isn’t Spring Valley

classified as one?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. A Superfund site—and I have some background

in this in my—for 17 out of the last 20 years, I was director of the

region Superfund program and had responsibility for all the cleanup projects in our 6-state—5-state plus the District region.

A Superfund site is any site that is contaminated with hazardous

substances that rises to the level of contamination that necessitates

Federal cleanup to be done; Federal identification, assessment, and

remediation to occur.

There are various types of Superfund sites. It’s not just one type

of thing. There are immediate cleanup sites, immediate removals,

where the levels are so high that one can’t wait; one has to do the

remediation right away. There are other sites where they are more

widespread or lower level of contamination, where sufficient time

can be had to do an appropriate study to determine the true degree

and extent of the contamination. These are remedial Superfund

sites.

Superfund also provides different responsibilities to different people to do things. It provides responsibility and authority to EPA to

do cleanup sites for most of the sites that are found in the country.

It also provides that it’s the responsibility of the Department of Defense to clean up sites that it caused the contamination for, the

theory being that if the U.S. Government caused the contamination, it didn’t want to use tax money to provide the cleanup. That

was funded by, for instance, the chemical industry.

So there are lots of different facets of the answer, and I hope I’ve

been able to answer at least what is a Superfund site. And I forgot

the second part of your question; I’m sorry.

Mrs. MORELLA. Why doesn’t Spring Valley—— Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Spring Valley——

Mrs. MORELLA [continuing]. Qualify?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Spring Valley is a—— Mrs. MORELLA. It is a Superfund site?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO [continuing]. Superfund site. The responses are

undertaken pursuant to the CERCLA law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, called

Superfund. And it does assign a number of responsibilities to the

President. The President then delegates that responsibility to either the EPA or, in this case the Army, or the Army and EPA, depending upon the nature of how the contamination was found

there. So it is Superfund, and it is currently the responsibility of

the Army to perform the cleanup work, but it must maintain consultation with the EPA to be sure that the environmental consequences are appropriately looked at and considered properly.

Mrs. MORELLA. Is that happening?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Yes. It definitely is. Ma’am, I said I started on

the site in 1993 as director of the hazardous waste cleanup program, and I’ve been involved in it ever since, and I’ve had many,

many, many areas of involvement, as well as with my staff, to be

sure that we are comfortable with the cleanup that is underway.

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Mrs. MORELLA. I’ll get back to you for other questions. But let

me ask, Admiral Williams, when you talk about the Child Development Center and the testing that is done with the hair, explain to

me how that happens. What if the hair grows out? Does this mean

that there is no more arsenic problem?

Admiral WILLIAMS. Well, that is an important consideration:

When was the last time the hair was cut, and how much of the

hair was available? In this case, we were able to obtain enough

hair samples from each of the students and the adults. The sample

was taken closest to the scalp. Usually when you get a haircut, it

is a little bit farther out. The concentration of arsenic in the hair

root is in equalibrium with the arsenic in the blood stream. So we

believe we would see it, as the hair grows out.

Mrs. MORELLA. But it means if you use that kind of testing, you

can only use it for a certain period of time.

Admiral WILLIAMS. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MORELLA. No duration would be adequate or appropriate.

Admiral WILLIAMS. That is correct, ma’am. Usually a period of

anywhere from 2 to 12 months is about all that hair analysis could

be used for.

Mrs. MORELLA. So how would you do the appraisal or the assessment of the adults that work there over a long period of time?

Admiral WILLIAMS. Well, we—— Mrs. MORELLA. They would have to still be working there?

Admiral WILLIAMS. Yes, ma’am. We were looking for indications

of exposure, and basically what it tells you is that there was no

current exposure, or within a relatively short period of time. It

doesn’t tell you whether or not people have been exposed in the

past.

Mrs. MORELLA. Uh-huh. I’m going to defer now to the ranking

member and get back to you.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Mr.

Voltaggio, why did the EPA not reveal the results of their photographic analysis in 1986?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Well, I can tell you the history of our involvement at that site at that time. On April 24, 1986, American University wrote to EPA about a possible problem of World-War-I-era

buried chemical munitions. The letter noted that the Army was investigating the matter. After confirming that the Army was engaged, EPA wrote back to AU, indicating that the Department of

Defense was responsible for the cleanup of munitions and that further inquiries should be directed to them. It is a letter of 1986 from

EPA back to American University.

At the same time in 1986, the Army had contracted with EPA’s

Environmental Photographic Interpretations Center, called EPIC.

These are the people that made that drawing. EPIC serves as a

governmentwide expert on photo interpretation. The report of July

1986 to the Army noted that significant features identified include

shell pits, trenches, possible test area, possible burial pits. The Region’s referral to the Army that I discussed, and the Army’s contract with EPIC, were the extent of EPA’s involvement at Spring

Valley in 1986. So it was a contractual relationship between the

Army and our photographic lab, who does governmentwide contracting for its services to do this very specific type of photo interVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:28 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00125 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77354.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pretation. Other offices of EPA were not given that report and had

no knowledge of it.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Voltaggio, have you ever heard of the Nuremberg trials?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Yes, I have, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. I don’t know if EPA regarded itself as, quote, following orders, but your answer terrifies me because it seems to say

that if EPA knows something that the world should know, it is

going to act as if it were a private contractor. And rely exclusively

upon a peer agency to reveal information that the EPA, and only

the EPA, found.

Can we trust the EPA, then—well, let me ask you this. Is that

your continuing view that if—are you still contracting with agencies?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. EPIC, I believe so, yes.

Ms. NORTON. Is that the continuing policy of the EPA, that the

matter is secret unless the Agency reveals contamination or other

matter?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. No, it is not—— Ms. NORTON. What is the policy of EPA today?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. We are governed by the Freedom of Information

Act, just like all the other Federal agencies are.

Ms. NORTON. Well, that means if somebody finds out enough to

ask a question, a FOIA can be put in. I want to know if you discover that there is harm done to American citizens or others in this

country, whether EPA has an obligation, if the Agency does not reveal it, to reveal it to the appropriate parties?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. EPIC did not make conclusions as to whether or

not there was any health risk from what it found. It simply interpreted photographs and provided that interpretation to the person

who contracted with them.

Absolutely, Congresswoman, if we have indication to indicate

that there is a health impact or environmental contamination from

any source, it is the Agency’s obligation and responsibility and total

intention to be sure that the people who are impacted know about

that.

Ms. NORTON. So you say that EPIC, when it made those photographs, had no knowledge of what those photographs meant?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. No. They simply interpreted what type of disturbances they found in those photographs, and indicated what it

believes could be reasons for the disturbances that it finds.

Ms. NORTON. When did EPA have reason to believe that there

was contamination in Spring Valley? When did you first have reason to believe that?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. January 5, 1993, when the utility contractor

found the shell, and we were called in in an emergency response.

Ms. NORTON. Did EPA have any reason to believe, dating as far

back as 1986, that any information that dates from 1986 might

have informed it of contamination in Spring Valley?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. We were contacted by a representative from

American University, who indicated that they believed there might

be buried munitions at that location and notified us of that. We responded to that individual and told him that under the responsibilities for cleanup of munitions, that the Army was the authority

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who would deal with that information and who should be properly

contacted, and, in fact we subsequently found out, was. And we directed that response back to the Army, saying any problem that occurred from munitions in Spring Valley would be the responsibility

of the Army, and we informed them so they could contact the appropriate person.

Ms. NORTON. Did you kind of put 2 and 2 together with the 86

aerial photographs which you had—— Mr. VOLTAGGIO. No, ma’am—well, the Agency had, ma’am. The

person who received the letter from American University was a regional administrator of EPA in Philadelphia, and that person did

in fact respond to the letter, saying that anything that is occurring

with regard to munitions that could be causing an environmental

problem, should be directed to the Army. EPA’s EPIC laboratory in

Virginia was the one who was separately contracting with the

Army, and that went on without the knowledge of EPA’s regional

administrator, since it was a contract job, which many others were,

with EPIC at that time.

Ms. NORTON. Are you convinced that the cleanup going on in

Spring Valley is state-of-the-art?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. We don’t have a competence with regard to evaluating that for finding buried munitions. I can comment, however,

we do have a competence with regard to environmental contamination going on: the investigation for environmental contamination,

such as arsenic. And I am convinced that it is a very thorough and

competent and dedicated effort by the Corps of Engineers. I think

you have to ask folks with experience with regard to finding munitions that question, because that is outside my area of competence.

Ms. NORTON. Admiral, first of all, I thank you for the way in

which your Agency has been so forthcoming and helpful to the District of Columbia. You indicated that you had done—and I thank

you for the very important exposure investigation that you have

done of a limited population, the children of the day care center,

the adults of the dare care center, apparently.

Are there others in the community who should have such exposure investigations made available to them from a health point of

view? I’m not talking about who does it now. I’m talking about others in the community, who live in the community or work in the

community, who ought to also have exposure investigations done

for them the way the children and the day care adults had.

Admiral WILLIAMS. As was testified earlier today, we are using

the results of the ongoing characterization of the properties to help

make that decision. So the answer is, at this time it is unknown.

But as we determine where contamination is located, look at what

the potential for exposure to that contamination is, then we can determine what type of biomonitoring would be necessary.

Ms. NORTON. But, of course, there has been exposure near homes

other than the day care center. There have been other sites where

people live. Why are those who live in those homes or near those

sites not proper subjects for exposure investigations?

Admiral WILLIAMS. We are just beginning to look at the data. We

have not received all the current round of sampling data, and

that’s why I can’t answer about those particular homes. Should we

find levels that are elevated and the potential for exposure exists,

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we would move toward some sort of the biomonitoring or further

exposure characterization.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. Who are you depending

upon to give you the data you speak of?

Admiral WILLIAMS. We’re working with the District of Columbia

Department of Health, and as they get the data, we will work with

them on that.

Ms. NORTON. You have given the adults and the children in the

day care community a clean bill of health for now, and we appreciate that was done quickly and that they had some of that anxiety

removed from them.

Is the exposure investigation you do limited only to short-term—

is the exposure you do limited only to immediate effects? Should

these children, should these adults, have similar investigations and

similar medical checkups done for them as time goes on; more so,

for example, than they might if they lived in Virginia or if they

lived in some other area of the district?

Admiral WILLIAMS. The exposure investigations that we do look

at current exposure; so, the immediate or current contact with contamination. For these children and for these adults, since we did

not see elevated arsenic levels in their hair, we don’t believe any

additional followup is necessary other than the routine yearly

checkup that children would have.

Ms. NORTON. That is indeed comforting.

Mr. Voltaggio, you spoke of a textbook response when you were

called in. I appreciate that EPA has been available now. I am concerned that you have had to behave like something on the order of

an emergency squad. If you get sick, then you call an ambulance.

When there has been the kind of exposure that has been documented here, would not EPA expect a systematic plan of the entire

community to be forthcoming, without waiting for excavations that

accidentally take place, for example, because people are building

something or otherwise the matter is accidentally discovered in

people’s backyards?

I mean, how would EPA suggest that the Army Corps of Engineers proceed, knowing that munitions were buried all around this

community?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Well, any environmental contamination that

would occur would be the result of exposure. And to determine

what exposure exists, one has to find where the contamination is

and where is the pathway for that exposure to get to folks, to get

to the environment, to get to the public. And we rely on sampling

efforts in order to do that.

There are many thousands of sites, tens of thousands of potentially contaminated waste sites across the country. The Army has

its own number of—I assume it’s in the thousands of potential

FUD sites, and it is looking at the worst sites first in a step-wise

fashion, and determining what contamination is found that governs

the action that needs to be taken.

We don’t want to attack sites on a first-come, first-served basis.

We want to do them on the worst-sites-first basis. And what we

found in 1993 was this was a bad site. So you know it was kind

of an action.

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Ms. NORTON. We’ve finally gotten to the point where 1,200 homes

need to be tested.

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Correct.

Ms. NORTON. Now, is that a representative sample, or are those

all homes that need to be——

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Those are all the homes in the Spring Valley

area. I might add that it is hugely atypical for a site that is 660

acres to have every single residential property sampled. I’m not

aware of any other site in the country, at least in our region which

I’m responsible, where that has actually been done. So it is an extraordinary effort.

Ms. NORTON. But I mean it is the appropriate way to handle

that, isn’t it, given that we’re talking about the second-worst site

for these munitions in the United States of America?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Well, pretty much prior to 1996, 1997, the indications were that with the exception of the munitions that were

found in the emergency response back in 1993, there wasn’t much

of anything else found.

Ms. NORTON. Well, let me just stop you right there. That’s what

bothers me, because it looks as though what EPA is saying and

what the Army is saying is there was no way, once there had been

accidental unearthings of these contaminants, to do the kind of

sampling that would have gotten us to where you finally got when

you have now decided that every home needs to be tested.

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Congresswoman——

Ms. NORTON. Why couldn’t that have been decided much earlier,

so the community would have known you’re going to get to all of

us, and let’s go about our business?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. That is a fair question, Congresswoman. The

fact is that up until roughly the late nineties, 1997, 1996, 1997,

1998, this was a munitionsite and it was not an arsenic site. Arsenic wasn’t indicated to be a problem until the late nineties. It

was at that time, that because the potential for arsenic contamination to be more widespread based on the information we received

from the District and what we received from the subsequent sampling by the Korean ambassador’s residence that, it appeared to

change in shape; it appeared to change in nature what was——

Ms. NORTON. That was a surprise, that it was arsenic? Munitions

were not a surprise?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. No.

Ms. NORTON. Arsenic, which is often part of munitions was a surprise?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Well, we didn’t find arsenic in the roughly 150

to 200 samples that were taken prior to 1997. There were only

three samples that showed any level of arsenic background, and

that for us led us to believe that this was a munitions site.

Ms. NORTON. But hasn’t there been evidence that the Army

Corps of Engineers weren’t digging deep enough to find the arsenic,

and if they had done a competent investigation, they would have

found the arsenic earlier?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Having been there at the time, I can tell you,

Congresswoman, that by far the biggest concern that people had in

1993—and I was on the ground there—was chemical agents and

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live rounds, and live rounds with chemical agents, and that was

what took 98 percent of everyone’s concern—and rightfully so.

And then when they moved into the second phase, then, from the

1993 to 1994 to 1995 time period, when they did sampling, and

EPA had split the samples with the Corps to determine all the hazardous constituents, not just the products of decomposition from

the chemical warfare agents, and we didn’t find anything out of the

ordinary.

Three out of roughly 200, 150 to 200 samples, showed arsenic

and really not much of anything else. We assumed that this is

what it was, and that is why we took the tack that we did. If it

wasn’t for the District coming to us in late 1996, early 1997, and

said they had more information that they were able to find that indicated that one of those pits, one of those points of interest that

the Army thought was looked at and sampled that didn’t have a

problem, was mislocated by 150 feet. It was—and then when they

sampled there, we opened up a new Operable Unit and sampled it.

That is when we started finding the arsenic, and that is when arsenic became an issue, and that is when now it morphs from a munitions site to a chemical contaminationsite that we are expert in.

And we then stepped a little more to the floor and advised the

Corps a little more strongly with regard to what additional sampling would have to be done, and they stepped up and they did the

sampling that we asked, as well as the District.

Ms. NORTON. I’m very disturbed that the District had to make

that finding, because I’m aware of—particularly at the time—it

was 1995, was it not?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Late 1996, early 1997. I myself met with D.C.

In January 1997, where we talked about this.

Ms. NORTON. At that time, the District would have been engaged

in a heroic effort, because that was at the bottom of the District’s

fiscal crisis when the city was insolvent.

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. It was a heroic effort. They found something

that no one else found.

Ms. NORTON. And, of course, the expertise to find this is why we

have a Federal Government. I don’t know how the District was able

to find it. I appreciate that EPA has quickly moved to take responsibility.

And, Madam Chair, I will end my questioning here.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Norton. I have a couple of questions I would like to pose. In terms of the testing, I think elevated

levels were found at the AU athletic field. How many adults, workers, students, were tested? How many volunteered to be tested?

How was that conducted? And what were the results?

Admiral WILLIAMS. There were 28 children and 4 adults tested.

We opened it up to any of the adults who wanted to be tested

for——

Mrs. MORELLA. This is the athletic field, not the Child

Development——

Admiral WILLIAMS. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not aware of how that testing that was done. That was not done by us.

Mrs. MORELLA. But that’s interesting, 28 children and 4 adults.

Admiral WILLIAMS. Right. For the Child Development Center,

I’m not aware of the other testing protocols.

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Mrs. MORELLA. Were there a lot that did not——

Admiral WILLIAMS. I don’t believe so. There may have been a

couple, but it wasn’t that many.

Mrs. MORELLA. The children were required to be tested.

Admiral WILLIAMS. They weren’t required, but all of them did

participate.

Mrs. MORELLA. They did all participate?

Admiral WILLIAMS. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MORELLA. I would be curious, maybe someone else would be

able to answer that for me later. But it seemed to me that the testing that was done at the AU athletic field would also be important

to know who was tested, what the results were there, too.

Going into that EPIC photo, Mr. Voltaggio, does it include all the

test sites, all the test——

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. There were a number of photographs that were

used by EPIC at different times. In 1986, I believe there were three

separate time periods that were looked at. Basically what EPIC

does is they go to photographic archives, and they find any maps

they can possibly find from any different year, and then they compare maps from year to year to determine what, if any, changes

have occurred. And they are the ones that are truly expert with regard to kind of what they did and how they did it.

But my understanding is that—then subsequent to 1986, we

have—we are directly working with EPIC now, and there are more

maps that were looked at subsequently. So there are at least five

or six maps they know that I know that they’re looking at and that

are helping us further refine the subsequent sampling that is going

on now.

Mrs. MORELLA. Uh-huh. So that there will be probably more

data——

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Yes.

Mrs. MORELLA [continuing]. On the next map that you will superimpose upon this one.

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Absolutely.

Mrs. MORELLA. So we can see that there are additional ones.

I’m wondering also Mr. Voltaggio, in terms of the role of EPA

and Spring Valley, does EPA have access to the Army’s secret files?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. I don’t know what you mean by secret files. We

did have——

Mrs. MORELLA. All Army’s files?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. I’ve never asked for that, so I don’t know. But

I can say that with regard to Spring Valley, that we did have access to the 1986 report. That was done. As a matter of fact, we got

that in 1993, along with most everyone else. In fact, it was 1993

that I think people first recognized, people other than the Army

and AU, first recognized that there was this 1986 report. We have

that report. We have all the records. We’ve gotten everything we’ve

asked for with regard to that.

Again, the purpose of the historical research was to better identify where they should sample for munitions, and we are in a situation now where between what the Army has and what EPIC has,

we feel very comfortable that—and also what D.C. found—we are

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thing that happened 70 years ago with regard to being able to determine what the level of contamination is.

I would also say that you can never be certain that there is not

something that couldn’t have been missed.

Mrs. MORELLA. What is EPA’s determination as to the current

risks to residents and those who work in Spring Valley?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Well, there is current risk. That is why we are

taking all of the time and effort to continue to look to find where

all the levels of arsenic are. We have had a number of formal risk

assessments. We have consulted with ATSDR. We have held out

signing any final documents until we got most all of the information that we could. Careful precautions are being taken right now

for the work that’s being done, and that helps to prevent risk.

There is risk out there. That is documented in our year 2000 risk

assessment. But it is a small risk, and it is being aggressively addressed. The best measure of safety maybe is, you know, would I

be comfortable living there? And the answer is absolutely yes. I

think that the risk is being very well managed, and every day it’s

being reduced by the efforts that are ongoing by the tremendous

level of work by the Corps, by the District, and by EPA.

Mrs. MORELLA. There are 1,200 residences. How are you going

about sampling or assessing them? Is it, like, voluntary on their

part? And how many have already been sampled?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Those answers should best be directed to the

Corps, who in the first part, is directly contacting the residents. We

are overseeing their work. There is a protocol that is being used.

They are requiring there to be consent before they go on the property. Beyond that, I really recommend, Congresswoman, that you

ask the Corps.

Mrs. MORELLA. Which will be the next panel that we’ll have before us.

Are you all satisfied that there is this partnership taking place

with the Army Corps, with EPA, with the District Government,

with AU, with all parties?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Absolutely yes, ma’am. I am very assured, I’m

very comfortable with the level of effort that the Army has given,

with the level of openness that the Army has with us, and the level

of response that they have given to us when we ask them to do

things that are in our area of expertise and they have the people

in the field to do.

The District has been a hands-on player for many, many years,

and I am very comfortable that from here on out, you are going to

continue to see, I think, what you’ve seen for the last several years.

That is, a joint effort to be sure that this community is made safe.

Mrs. MORELLA. The District indicated they might need more resources. Do you see that as a need from your perspective?

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. From what I was able to ascertain, the area of

health studies is an area that they must indicate their need. The

most appropriate source for them to go to would be to HHS, would

be to ATSDR. I think that might best be addressed to them. When

it comes to any technical support with regard to environmental

contaminations that we are the experts on, we will give the District

any support that they need to ensure that the site is made safe.

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Mrs. MORELLA. It’s interesting, we haven’t heard from the Korean Embassy, and I’ve gotten no communication from the Ambassador, because——

Mr. VOLTAGGIO. Well, there’s a lot of time and effort being spent

to make sure that site is safe. It’s had quite an excavation project

done on it.

Mrs. MORELLA. Because we have Dr. Ladner who’s here, who

lives next door. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mrs. Morella. I have really only one

more question. Given your expertise, Admiral Williams, is it your

belief that a thorough epidemiological study should be done in the

Spring Valley community at this time?

Admiral WILLIAMS. Excuse me, ma’am. It’s too early to tell. We

need to look at the unfolding environmental data that is coming in

at this time and make our determination based on that, based on

what we see in terms of exposures and the various types of chemicals that may be out there. So it’s too early, but that is something

that will be considered as we move forward.

Ms. NORTON. We’re to the point now where we’re trying to bring

closure to the outstanding questions in the community. Now, at

what point do you think one should begin the kind of health study

I just asked you about?

Admiral WILLIAMS. I’m sorry?

Ms. NORTON. We’re already trying to go into 1,200 homes. Is it

at that point, when we’ve gone into and have the data from those

homes, that it would be appropriate to do the epidemiological

study?

Admiral WILLIAMS. Well, what we could do is as the information

becomes available for those 1,200 homes in terms of the environmental contamination, we look at the exposures, the potential for

exposure, and what that means to health; and then the next step

would be followup health studies as needed. So, it would be in

phases.

Ms. NORTON. All right. So that argues for getting the 1,200

homes as quickly as possible so that we could then move to the

next step?

Admiral WILLIAMS. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mrs. Morella.

Mrs. MORELLA. I want to thank the second panel for being so patient, waiting for your turn up on the deck, and for doing such a

good job. We hope, also, to get back to you with questions, additional questions that we may want you to respond to. And any of

your suggestions about what more can be done with working out

this partnership would be valued.

Admiral Williams, thank you very much. Mr. Voltaggio, thank

you, sir.

I’ll ask the third panel to come forward.

If you can find your spot, you may want to remain standing for

just a moment: Dr. Ladner, Mr. Walker, Mr. Reardon, accompanied

by Mr. Kiefer and Colonel Fiala. Gentlemen, would you raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much. The record will show the

affirmative response. Again, following through about a 5-minute

maximum testimony so we can ask some questions, and, again, I

preface your testimony by thanking you for being so patient. It’s

tough to be the last panel, but I appreciate your all being here to

have heard also the testimony and the questions and answers.

Dr. Ladner, welcome. Thank you, sir. We’ll start off with you.

STATEMENTS OF BENJAMIN LADNER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN

UNIVERSITY; LEWIS D. WALKER, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY,

AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH; FRANCIS E. REARDON, AUDITOR GENERAL OF THE ARMY, U.S. ARMY AUDIT AGENCY, ACCOMPANIED BY STEPHEN KIEFER, DEPUTY AUDITOR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY AUDIT AGENCY; RAYMOND J. FATZ, DEPUTY

ASSISTANT SECRETARY, ARMY, ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY AND

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, ACCOMPANIED BY COLONEL

CHARLES J. FIALA, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

Mr. LADNER. Thank you, Madam Chair, Delegate Norton, and

distinguished members of the panel. My name is Benjamin Ladner.

I have been President of American University since July 1994. I reside at a site that is currently being investigated by the Army

Corps of Engineers.

American University, as we all know, offered its campus to the

Federal Government in April 1917 in support of the United States’

entry into World War I. It’s interesting to point out that approximately nine other owners of wooded properties in Spring Valley

contiguous to the University also leased their land to the government for use in military operations.

In November 1918, after the armistice with Germany, the War

Department began closing its facilities on the AU campus. During

the final stages of dismantling, the Army entered into an agreement with the University and accepted responsibility for cleaning

up the remains of their operations and restoring the AU campus

to its prewar condition.

In 1986, while preparing for the construction of an athletic facility, AU discovered a 1921 student newspaper article, claiming that

the Army had buried munitions along the campus perimeter during

the cleanup and dismantling process. To ensure the safety of its

campus, AU sought confirmation from the Deputy Secretary of Defense that no munitions and ordnance were present on campus

property, and it also invited the Environmental Protection Agency

to participate in the assessment.

Also in 1986, in response to a request from the University, the

Department of Army conducted archival research and undertook

the munitions survey of the constructionsites. Army testing to

depths of 15 feet revealed no suspicious items. The Army also sent

an explosive ordnance disposal support team to be onsite during excavation of the construction area. Recognizing the need to keep the

AU community informed about the Army’s activities on campus,

the University distributed campus communications about these operations, which were also reported in the student newspaper at the

time.

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Several months after the University’s initial inquiry, the Army

concluded that, ‘‘the source that says munitions were buried is historically suspect.’’ And also, ‘‘there is no official evidence of any

such burial.’’ In June 1986, the EPA advised the University that it had no

firsthand information about the presence of hazardous waste in the

vicinity of our campus, and it indicated that investigations of hazardous waste at these locations were the responsibility of the Department of Defense due to its prior use. Several years later, in

1993, a construction worker digging a utility trench uncovered

unexploded ordnance and munitions on what is now 52nd Court,

Northwest.

This led to the Army Corps’ 1993 to 1995 investigation and

cleanup known as Operation Safe Removal. The AU campus was

one of nine regions within Spring Valley targeted for this investigation. The Army completed its operations and issued a record of decision in June 1995. It concluded that conditions at the site, ‘‘did

not pose unacceptable risks to human health and the environment.

Therefore, no further remedial action is necessary.’’ However, a year and a half later, in January 1997, the Army

Corps began a new investigation of the area in response to inquiries from the Washington, DC, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. They determined that burial sites for old munitions

might be located on property adjacent to the AU campus, formerly

owned by the University and now belonging to the Republic of

Korea.

In the fall of 2000, the Army Corps notified the University that

it wanted to test soil on the AU campus as a result of findings at

the Republic of Korea property. Preliminary tests on the south side

of our campus registered elevated levels of arsenic in the soil near

the University’s Child Development Center; elevated levels were

also registered in the area of the athletic fields and our admissions

office.

In January 2001, more intensive tests confirmed even higher levels of arsenic in the soil at the CDC. Upon receiving these test results, literally within 90 minutes, the university took steps to safeguard the health of the campus community by immediately closing

the CDC facility and relocating its operations.

We subsequently closed the intramural fields as well, and they

remain closed today until a remediation plan can be developed.

While taking steps to compile complete and accurate information,

the university implemented an open communication approach to its

constituency regarding the activities of the Army Corps on campus.

University officials have met with CDC parents as well as AU

students, faculty, grounds and maintenance staff at significant

times during the project to provide information and to address

their concerns. Numerous regular updates have been provided and

an information line established to enable people to ask questions

and get information. A project-specific Web site has been set up

with information about the project and links to other sites, including the Army Corps and the D.C. Health Department Web pages.

The university is working cooperatively with the DC Department

of Health, the Army Corps and the EPA to develop a thorough remediation plan for the entire campus. Despite these efforts AmerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:28 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00135 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77354.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ican University has suffered severe disruption and other damages

and faces the prospect of incurring additional damages in the future. For this reason, the university did file an administrative

claim with the Army on July 13, 2001, seeking damages arising

from the Army’s activities.

Thank you for allowing me to address the District committee. I’d

be pleased to answer questions.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Dr. Ladner.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ladner follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. I’m pleased to recognize Lewis Walker, former

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environmental Safety

and Occupational Health. Mr. Walker.

Mr. WALKER. Yes, Madam Chairwoman and Congresswoman

Norton, I am Lewis D. Walker, and I was the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. I retired from the Federal Government in June 1995

first on medical leave and then formal retirement on January 1,

1996. I was in the position from April 20, 1980, to the time of my

retirement.

With regard to the Spring Valley area, it was one of my restoration responsibilities that the Army addressed during my tenure.

In 1986, Army assisted the American University with its construction program by having Army emergency disposal units survey the constructionsites. With nothing found at the sites down to

considerable depth, the construction projects were completed successfully. Army then conducted a review of the area on the possibility of unexploded ordnance in the area and found no information

that would require further study.

Later, in 1993, World War I munitions were discovered in the

Spring Valley area. The Army removed the munitions and initiated

a restoration program for the 600-acre area. Over $20 million were

spent on this project by the time I retired in 1995.

Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my brief statement. I will be

glad to respond to the questions to the extent that I can remember

the details, and thank you for inviting me to testify today.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Walker.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Now I recognize Francis Reardon, Auditor General of the Army, the U.S. Army Audit Agency. Mr. Reardon.

Mr. REARDON. Thank you, Chairman Morella, Congresswoman

Norton. I am Francis Reardon, the Army’s Auditor General. With

me is Stephen Kiefer, the Agency’s Deputy Auditor General for Installation Management Audits and the senior agency official who

worked on our 1995 effort concerning Spring Valley.

The Agency’s efforts in regard to Spring Valley operations are

limited to a 1995 review performed at the request of the U.S. Army

Claims Service. The Claims Service asked for audit assistance in

assessing the validity of a 1995 claim brought against the Army by

the Miller Co. for about $15 million in damages, losses and expenses the developer said it suffered as a result of the Army’s alleged negligence in burying chemical weapons. The Agency began

its review on April 17, 1995, by meeting with the onsite project

manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District

and reviewing available data, such as the results of prior surveys

and research efforts by the Army and other government agencies,

claims and correspondence provided by the Miller Co., relevant and

appropriate laws and regulations applicable at the time of experimentation operations and in 1986.

During the process of this review, audit staff members held an

entrance conference on June 6, 1995, with Corps of Engineers

headquarters personnel.

We have noted the recent press accounts concerning Army audits

have apparently mistaken the June 6, 1995, briefing charts and the

interim results reflected therein as a report. This was not the case.

Rather, the charts simply reflect the auditor’s review at that stage

of the ongoing review. It should be recognized that additional work

occurred after the entrance briefing with the Corps of Engineers

headquarters personnel. After the additional work, which included

review of documents, applicable laws, and military regulations,

conversation with subject matter experts, and a legal review by the

Agency’s chief counsel, we reached our final conclusions.

On July 27, 1995, the Agency issued Report 95–774 addressing

the claim by the Spring Valley real estate developer. The Agency

concluded that the Army had no legal or regulatory requirement to

formally notify local authorities or third parties in 1986 because

Army researchers were unable to conclusively determine that

chemical weapons had ever been buried at Spring Valley. The

Army fulfilled its responsibilities during World War I by storing

and disposing of chemical weapons in accordance with laws and

regulations applicable at the time. The real estate developer should

have known about the presence of the experiment station and the

possibility that dangerous materials existed, and at least $11 million of the real estate developer’s $15 million claim was without

merit, and due to a lack of documentation from the Miller Co., the

remaining $4 million could not be evaluated.

Mr. Kiefer and I appreciate the opportunity to testify and provide

the Army audit agency results concerning Spring Valley. That concludes my statement, Madam Chairwoman.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Reardon.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reardon follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. You’re just on call for questions right and so—— Mr. KIEFER. Right.

Mrs. MORELLA. And so now let me see, I have Colonel Fiala, but

are you planning to testify? This is just a brief search for identity.

All right. I know you’re a special presence.

Raymond Fatz, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. Forgive the interruption.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. FATZ. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman and Congresswoman Norton. I’m pleased to have this opportunity to appear before you to discuss Army activities at the formerly used defense site

[FUDS], located in Spring Valley.

The Army’s No. 1 priority for Spring Valley is to protect the

health and safety of its residents. I have personally been to the site

and have attended public meetings and have listened to the residents’ concerns. We share their concerns and are committed to

identifying and removing remaining contamination from defenserelated activities. Through a collaborative effort with the Environmental Protection Agency, the District of Columbia Department of

Health, American University and the community, we will work to

ensure that information on our activities is openly communicated

and that the cleanup proceeds in a rapid and thorough manner. We

will continue to do so until the community is satisfied that the

cleanup is complete.

As you know, the Army has initiated a comprehensive sampling

program at every residential property in Spring Valley to identify

potential contamination. This effort was designed and is being undertaken in close coordination with our regulatory partners and the

community. It is my hope that this effort and any necessary followon actions will provide a level of comfort to the residents that their

property is safe for their families.

This is a highly complex project due to the nature of contamination, the fact that the area is so highly developed and is a residential community. The Army has worked closely with the District of

Columbia, the EPA, American University and ATSDR since 1993

to share information and to coordinate plans and future actions. I

believe that the Army has been forthright in providing information

to all interested parties.

After the discovery of the munitions by a construction crew in

1993, the Army began extensive outreach to the community. We developed a public involvement and response plan that had the specific objectives of keeping the community informed, providing an

opportunity to review and comment on work being conducted, and

ensuring that the community concerns are integrated into the

plans and actions. Today information is shared through community

meetings, newsletters, status updates, a Web site and information

repository at the Palisades Public Library.

This spring the Army established a restoration advisory board

comprised of 14 community members as well as representatives

from several involved agencies. The board provides an expanded

opportunity for public input to the cleanup process.

The safety and well-being of the community are of paramount

importance to the Army. I know that this may be a very difficult

time for the Spring Valley residents. As a parent, I understand

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their need to have confidence in the safety of their homes and

yards. I want to assure you that the Army is committed to restoring that confidence. The Army is applying its best expertise and resources and technology to the situation. We will continue to clean

up this site as comprehensively and effectively as possible in coordination with the regulatory agencies and the community.

I believe that the Army acted in good faith at every stage of this

project, based on the information and technology available to us at

the time. Nonetheless, it is now clear that some contamination

went undetected despite our efforts.

Over the past 15 years, we have learned a great deal about the

past practices dating back to World War I and how to better detect

and characterize contamination. A review of our actions at Spring

Valley will ensure that what we have learned is applied as we go

forward investigating and remediating this and other sites.

I appreciate the opportunity to testify on this matter of importance. Thank you.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fatz follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Colonel Fiala.

Colonel FIALA. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman and Congresswoman Norton. I am Colonel Charles J. Fiala, Jr., Commander and

District Engineer of the Baltimore District Corps of Engineers.

Thank you for inviting me to testify today.

Since February 1993, the Baltimore District Corps of Engineers

has been the lead Army agency responsible for site operations in

the environmental cleanup at Spring Valley formerly used defense

site in Washington, DC. I want to start out by letting you know we

share the concerns of the community. I have a large team of dedicated specialists working on this project headed by my site operations officer Major Mike Peloquin, and while the members of his

team may not live in Spring Valley, they view themselves as community members, and they work very hard and take their work

very seriously.

To illustrate this point I would like to share with you some comments made by one Spring Valley resident when Mike’s predecessor Major Brian Plaisted was preparing to retire a few months

ago.

This resident said of Brian Plaisted, ‘‘He earned the respect of

the members of the Spring Valley-Wesley Heights Citizens Association. He has pursued a difficult mission with care and good judgment, always with an eye to the interest of the residents of this

area. We thank him for his concern for the well-being of people living near the chemical warfare operations site and for his untiring

efforts to keep residents informed.’’

This mission is a complex mission. There are no easy solutions.

We have a large site, over 660 acres, with what now appears to be

isolated areas of contamination. Trying to find this contamination

is a little like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack;

difficult, but not impossible. The contamination resulted from activities that took place over 80 years ago when today’s strict environmental laws and regulations did not exist. Many of the activities and disposal practices were undocumented, and to complicate

the problem further, what was once a large rural area has been extensively developed, so the topography of today is nothing like it

was 80 years ago.

A detailed chronology of our involvement is provided in my written testimony and has been adequately already summarized by Mr.

Voltaggio earlier.

Right now I would like to emphasize that from the beginning of

our involvement in Spring Valley, we have worked hard to make

our investigation totally open and to include the community in the

process. We are continuing to look for better ways to do this. Our

latest effort in this regard was the establishment of the Restoration

Advisory Board made up of residents, business interests and the

involved government agencies. We’ve coordinated our actions with

the EPA, D.C. government, and other defense agencies and the

community. We’ve conducted sampling, laboratory analyses and

risk assessments using the latest sampling techniques and testing

protocols. A top priority of the Army has been and continues to be

the health and safety of the community and the work force we have

on the ground conducting operations.

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Past decisions can always be criticized in hindsight, but I believe

that they were made in good faith and with the best information

available at the time. We will continue to coordinate our work at

Spring Valley openly and in full consultation with the community,

D.C. government and the EPA. The Army Corps of Engineers has

committed to aggressively identifying and removing all hazards associated with past defensive actions in the Spring Valley neighborhood. This commitment is supported by resources from numerous

Army agencies, including personal involvement at the Army Secretariat level and by onsite support from the world’s foremost experts in ordnance, chemical warfare materiel, and the area of

photointerpretation.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. This concludes my remarks, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.

[The prepared statement of Colonel Fiala follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Colonel Fiala, and if I

could just ask this third and final panel if they would allow us to

recess for about 35 minutes, give you a chance to stand up and

move around. We’ll have five consecutive votes on the floor, and

then we will come back for questioning.

OK. Great. Thank you. So the committee is in recess for about

35 minutes.

[Recess.]

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you for being so patient. I’m going to reconvene our hearing, and we’ll commence with our questioning. I

thank the panel for being here for the entire time for their testimony.

I will start off, Dr. Ladner; with you, since you were the first one

to testify. Thank you for being here, first of all. I want to point out,

as you are aware, Dr. Ladner, that the subcommittee did invite

Donald Myers to this hearing, and Donald Myers is the vice president for finance and treasurer of the American University.

Mr. LADNER. That’s right.

Mrs. MORELLA. And you’re aware during the relevant period

we’re discussing, 1986 to the present, Donald Myers held this position at American University. At this time, the invitation to Dr.

Donald Myers to appear at this hearing will be submitted for the

record.

And you’re aware that the subcommittee was informed by letter

from David Taylor, your chief of staff, dated July 25, 2001, that

Donald Myers was unable to attend because of illness?

Mr. LADNER. That’s right.

Mrs. MORELLA. And I’m going to submit the letter from David

Taylor for the record.

The subcommittee also sent a letter to David Taylor inquiring

when Vice President Donald Myers would be available to give testimony under oath. I think you’re probably aware of that.

Mr. LADNER. I am.

Mrs. MORELLA. For the record, I am going to submit the letter

for the record.

I want to during my period of time then switch over to General

Walker. General Walker, let’s go to the bottom line first. Why

didn’t the Army feel it was necessary to inform the public that

there might be munitions buried under the University in the

Spring Valley area?

General WALKER. Madam Chairman, the situation—I realize it

was my decision that’s under close scrutiny here, but based on the

evidence that we had at that time and the many projects that we

were dealing with throughout the country, it didn’t show that this

site warranted additional study.

However, I always at any site left the situation open that if we

found something, or new information, we would return. I did not

find sufficient evidence at that time to move forward with and also

did not see the need to disclose that. We made a decision that there

wasn’t enough evidence to go forward. We had other sites that

we’re dealing with, literally thousands, and all these, and Spring

Valley as well, I was very concerned about the health and welfare.

We had a particular site where two young children had been

killed. We had several sites where we were contaminating the

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drinking waters of communities, where we weren’t giving bottled

water out, and then making arrangements for permanent hookup

of safe water supplies.

So this fit into a situation where there were many projects out

there, and this one did not warrant the evidence. Had we had hard

evidence there had been burial there and it was very clear, we

would have been there with a thorough investigation.

Mrs. MORELLA. Who did make the ultimate decision regarding

the U.S. Government’s role in the Spring Valley, once American

University asked for your help in 1986? How high up did the matter go? Did it go to the White House?

General WALKER. No. This was——

Mrs. MORELLA. Defense Secretary?

General WALKER. Well, you always hate to come back and have

a review of your decisions and find out that they were not accurate.

I was the one that made the decision. I was the one that worked

with American University. I was the one that had made the decision, on the evidence that I had, not to go forward. People were informed. My supervisors were informed. But I was in charge of the

environmental programs and the occupational health programs in

the Army and safety programs, and so I made that decision.

Mrs. MORELLA. In reading that October 29, 1986 report by the

Army, that was sent to American University, in terms of semantics

it seems to take pains to discredit any contemporary evidence that

munitions were buried in Spring Valley. In fact, it even says we

could not disprove the possibility that some materials remain buried on or near the campus of American University. And then, additionally, one of the main conclusions was the source that says that

munitions were buried is historically suspect, and yet the Army’s

analysis of the source, two American University newspaper—Courier—articles from 1921 focus on disproving minor details of the reports, like the munitions buried, the style of writing, rather than

the big-picture question of whether or not weapons were indeed

buried there.

We wonder whether the Army was ever really interested in finding out the truth about buried munitions.

General WALKER. Madam Chairman, we were very concerned at

the time when I had the program of looking and trying to ascertain

where all those that might pose threats of health and safety to individuals might be, and we operated—we have the program. We actually—after 1986, we expanded the program because we knew

that it was too large for the former used sites and current active

sites on the installations, but we were quite concerned about every

area and this was one of many. We made a judgment call, or I

made a judgment call. It turned out by 1993 that it was proven

that there were munitions there. It was one of those judgments

that you make and then you find out that it was not that sound.

But the Army still admitted that they—in 1993 when we found

the munitions there, we immediately stepped forward, moved to remove them, worked with the D.C. government, the Army—or the

Environmental Protection Agency and all those concerned, to make

sure that we maintained the health and safety of the people in the

area.

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Mrs. MORELLA. Did the Army or the U.S. Government conduct its

own archival review of military activities on the AU campus, and

if so, were you ever denied any access to material because it was

deemed classified?

General WALKER. No. I had a security clearance, Madam Chairman. I didn’t feel that I was denied any information. We had two

studies that were important to this effort. And in the review, we

had the U.S. Army Toxic and Hazardous Materials Agency, which

is now named the Army Environmental Center, and then we had

the EPIC report that was referred to earlier by the EPA representative.

Mrs. MORELLA. Actually, I guess what you’re saying to me, General Walker, is that you made a decision but you were incorrect in

making the decision?

General WALKER. I made the decision on the information that I

had which later basically was inadequate, yes.

Mrs. MORELLA. Did you make it alone, make the decision alone?

General WALKER. I had people that reviewed the material who

were there, but I was the one responsible for making the decision.

Mrs. MORELLA. OK. I’ll get back in on the next round. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mrs. Morella. Mr. Reardon.

Mr. REARDON. Yes, ma’am?

Ms. NORTON. I’m looking at your testimony, and you try to distinguish the charts. You say it is charts from which the conclusion

was drawn, that the Agency believed that—this is the sticking

point here—the 1986 finding, as it were, that came from these

charts, that the Army should have formally notified local authorities—I’m quoting from your testimony now—and third parties in

1986 of potential existence of buried chemicals.

Then you go on to say that ultimately the auditors performed additional work—and here I’m quoting again—discussed the laws and

regulations in effect in 1986 with Agency legal counsel and command subject matter experts. And that on the basis of those discussions, you testified the Army had no obligation to formally notify

local authorities or third parties, because at that time the available

evidence of buried chemical weapons at Spring Valley was at best

inconclusive.

Is it your testimony that in order to do further investigation, one

has to already have conclusive evidence of contaminants and that

there was no obligation, given the indications here, to seek further

evidence of contaminants?

Mr. KIEFER. Let me address it, please. There’s a couple of issues

here. One, we were chartered to do a review of the potential existence of chemical weapons, not contaminants.

Ms. NORTON. Let’s say chemical weapons then.

Mr. KIEFER. The review on June 6th when we had our entrance

conference, we had charts that were—the conclusion was based on

the premise that we had knowledge of a potential chemical weapons storage site. Based on that information, we concluded that notification should be made. Subsequent review and talking with the

subject matter experts and our legal counsel, there were no requirements to report the potential of chemical weapons——

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Ms. NORTON. Stop there. What elicits my question is that the

lawyers got in the picture. I’m a graduate of Yale Law School. I

know what—I make no defense of lawyers, although I respect

them.

Mr. KIEFER. Ms. Norton, under our charter, we were validating

a legal claim made by Miller Co. That’s why we were involved.

Ms. NORTON. Therefore, you were protecting the Agency against

liability is what your testimony is.

Mr. KIEFER. No. We were validating the claim for the Army. We

are an independent Army—Mr. Reardon is the Auditor General of

the Army, and he’s independent in all the evaluations we do. We

were to assess was there validity to the claim made by Miller Co.

Ms. NORTON. I can understand that you, in connection with a

lawsuit, may have said that there is no validity to the claim made

by this claimant. What I cannot understand is why in 1986 this did

not encourage further investigation by the Army. Those are two different matters.

You know, I can understand, look, there’s nothing here that says

contaminated weapons here. We don’t have any conclusive evidence. I accept that. Don’t sue us on the basis of what we don’t

know. What I don’t accept is that the Army or the auditor would

not have said, while there is no evidence now, there is enough indication, particularly since this is a residential community and this

is the second largest site in the United States where there were

munitions, and maybe we ourselves ought to look further.

You could have still protected yourself against liability and you

may well have been right, there’s not any liability, and done your

duty as a public agency to look for chemical weapons for which you

would have been exclusively responsible.

Mr. KIEFER. Again, Ms. Norton, based on the information we

had, there was no clear evidence there were munitions stored

there. And I think on top of that, the fact that——

Ms. NORTON. You said there was no—look, all this says is that

the Army had no obligation—and listen to this. I can understand

that there was no clear evidence that chemical weapons were

stored in the community, but it says that the Army had—your testimony, Mr. Reardon’s testimony, it says the obligation—had no obligation to formally notify local authorities or third parties, because

at the time the available evidence wasn’t clear enough.

Mr. KIEFER. Correct.

Ms. NORTON. And I am saying that is very scary because all you

would have been required to do is further investigation.

Mr. KIEFER. But I guess, along with that, you have to understand that the Army was also working with American University

when they were getting ready to do their construction, that we

have not found anything, but if anything is found during construction, the Army was standing by ready to do what needed to be

done.

Ms. NORTON. But you see what it does, that leads it to a hit and

miss ad hoc, if you find something then maybe we’ll find something, but we’re certainly not going to move on our own, we certainly have no obligation except on a site-by-site basis to see

whether or not there are weapons buried here.

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There seems to be no proactive preventative response here. And

so if the attitude you initially took continued, then we would still

be waiting, weapon by weapon, for somebody to dig up earth, building a house or building on the AU campus, before AU could do anything. At some point you all decided you did have to move forward.

Mr. KIEFER. Let me try to clarify this a little bit more. We were

validating a claim by Miller Co. Our work which we currently are

involved in and have been involved in does look at health and safety environmental issues. It was a totally different scope of events.

As far as Army Audit’s role, we were validating a claim, we weren’t

doing a——

Ms. NORTON. I accept that, Mr. Kiefer. You were validating a

claim. And my concern is that beyond validating that claim, you

saw no reason to look further to see if there might have been chemical weapons. You could—it seems to me that those are—I said

from the beginning, those are two different things. But your own

early warning seems to have been ignored.

For example, you concluded in 1995 that there was no further

risk. You dismissed D.C.’s pleas for further testing in 1997. It looks

as though the Army had to be pushed every step of the way in

order to accept responsibility and to—finally, of course, you have

a good cleanup going on, but at considerable angst to the community involved.

Could I ask a question of Mr.——

Mr. KIEFER. Ms. Norton, could I——

Ms. NORTON. Yes indeed, if you have further response.

Mr. KIEFER. Remember, we were looking back to 1986. We

weren’t actively involved in 1993, 1995 operations. This again, we

were looking at a claim, and the objective for the munitions was

1986.

Ms. NORTON. I understand that. It’s the trail we’re trying to get

back to——

Mr. KIEFER. I understand.

Ms. NORTON. How could the Army Corps of Engineers have become more proactive? Could they have taken more seriously back

in 1986 what I’m calling an early warning?

Could I ask, Dr. Ladner, did AU offer its campus? Was it paid

for allowing this weapons testing to occur?

Mr. LADNER. You’re talking about originally?

Ms. NORTON. Yes.

Mr. LADNER. In 1917? The initiative of the then-president and

the board of trustees is what led to the Army coming in. We actually wrote a letter to the President of the United States and made

this offer, and the Army then came in and developed the site in the

way that they did.

Ms. NORTON. Was there any quid pro quo? Why did you decide

to do that——

Mr. LADNER. I think it was patriotism. We had a lot of land. We

had 92 acres. And back in 1919, that was farmland. And I think

it was simply generosity of the spirit, that this can help in the

cause. We did the same thing in World War II, incidentally.

Ms. NORTON. Is that right?

Mr. LADNER. Right.

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Ms. NORTON. As a result of your offer in World War II, were

there any burials that took place?

Mr. LADNER. Well, in fact there were two components to the program, as best I can recall from the research. One is that we trained

what were then called WAVES. The women in the Navy had a

large barracks and training site on our campus, and they had a

Navy Disposal Training Center in which they used no live ammunition but only dummy weapons to be worked on by the Navy.

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Ladner, you had—American University, not you

yourself, had access to that map from 1986, did you not?

Mr. LADNER. We did.

Ms. NORTON. Therefore, you did not have to rely entirely upon

the opinion of the Army auditors, did you?

Mr. LADNER. No.

Ms. NORTON. What did American University believe that map

showed in 1986?

Mr. LADNER. Two or three things are relevant to our understanding of that map. One is it’s important to note that we’re the ones

that took the initiative to find out what was there originally

through our own research. So we were very eager. We notified the

EPA, we notified the Army, etc. Second, when this report came, as

Madam Chair has noted, through the October 29 cover letter it indicated that there was absolutely no cause for alarm, there was no

munition burial, there was no reason to believe that there was any

danger or hazard. Third, it’s important——

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask you, when you asked the Army what’s

the meaning of the map? Is that what you are saying?

Mr. LADNER. Absolutely. We were not the experts. We went to

them for help. We don’t have our own munitions search team. We

don’t have the expertise to do that. We went to them because they

have that kind of expertise. So even though we’re the largest landowner, obviously, we are one of the landowners there in a position

of saying someone who is an expert needs to come in here and tell

us what we have here. We followed all the right protocol. We contacted the Defense Department, the EPA, etc., to get an answer to

that question. It’s also important to note as——

Ms. NORTON. Did you ever have discussions with——

Mr. LADNER. Pardon me?

Ms. NORTON. Did you ever have discussions in the university

community about these discoveries, or with members of the community?

Mr. LADNER. We notified the communities through memoranda,

and it was reported in the student newspaper. There was a period

of several months, because we were involved in a construction

project where the Army was clearly visible there every day there

onsite, and we reported what they were doing and why. Clearly, it

was discussed by our general counsel, by our vice president of facilities, etc., during that time to be able to make judgments about

what the Army was telling us.

When they completed the excavation, they gave us a clean bill

of health, and we built the building. So we didn’t feel that we were

in any jeopardy, that there was some alarm bell that needed to be

pulled. We were told that there was nothing found.

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Ms. NORTON. Why have you brought suit, and what do you expect to prove in that lawsuit and to get as a result of that lawsuit?

Mr. LADNER. Right. Small technicality which you as a lawyer

may know. We actually haven’t brought suit. We’ve filed an administrative claim with the Army. We hope over the next 6 months to

be able to prevent having to file suit. We simply want to recover

real damages to the University. There have been very direct

charges that have cost us in terms of relocating—— Ms. NORTON. Why do you think you’re entitled? Who do you

think has harmed the University?

Mr. LADNER. The Army.

Ms. NORTON. I’ll wait for the next round, Madam Chair.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.

It’s interesting when you mentioned, Dr. Ladner, that in a sense

of patriotism that American University offered to be literally the

dumping ground. Did they try to get—well, did the Army get indemnification? I mean, did the University in any way ask for—you

know what I’m trying to say.

Mr. LADNER. Sure—— Mrs. MORELLA. Would there be any blame that the University or

any claim that the University could make for any damages?

Mr. LADNER. Yes. Madam Chair, in 1920 when the Army activities were completed and they moved, or at least said later that they

had moved all the munitions to the Edgewood area in Maryland,

we then signed an agreement. Our president signed an agreement,

with the Army that indicated two things: one, that the condition

of the land would be restored to its prewar condition; and, two, that

upon payment of $121,000-plus to the University, the Army would

be indemnified.

Mrs. MORELLA. The Army would be. So that evidently took place

and——

Mr. LADNER. Right.

Mrs. MORELLA. It sounded like you needed a good lawyer at that

time to——

Mr. LADNER. We have one now.

Mrs. MORELLA. But now let me get back to where you live, and

I alluded to that earlier when I mentioned the Korean Embassy.

The house that’s next door to you is one that was formerly owned

and occupied by the—I think it’s the Loughlins.

Mr. LADNER. Loughlins. Tom and Kathy Laughlin.

Mrs. MORELLA. Right. Right. And they have two young children

who have been living in that house since 1994, and the Washington

Post reported on Wednesday of this week that the Loughlins say

that this week the Army, AU, the EPA, and the developer withheld

critical information. Do you have any response to that?

Mr. LADNER. Yes. We had no transactions with the Loughlins.

We didn’t sell them the property. We have never in any way had

direct responsibility for that property since they have owned it or

in the process of their buying it.

I can say that I personally went next door when some small vials

of chlorine and acid were found in our front yard, in the president’s

residence, and notified them that a remedial action was about to

take place, and that we had been notified that it was not a dangerous transaction, and indeed my wife and I have continued to

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live in the house throughout all of the testing and remediation

around that area.

In addition, the University formally notified all the people on

that block of what was taking place. So we did take steps to notify

the Loughlins in particular of what we knew at the time.

Mrs. MORELLA. The Washington Post in that very same article

said that Robert Brandt, president of the development company,

Lawrence N. Brandt, Inc., said that his company told them everything we knew; and stated, I’m upset because I purchased the property from AU. Is it true that the developer purchased the Laughlin

property from American University—— Mr. LADNER. Not directly. We actually auctioned the property in

1987, and I believe it was purchased by Miller & Co., actually, and

then sold to Mr. Brandt.

Mrs. MORELLA. And the house you live in, was that built by the

same development company?

Mr. LADNER. It was.

Mrs. MORELLA. And that property was also purchased by the

developer—— Mr. LADNER. That’s right. That’s right.

Mrs. MORELLA [continuing]. From American University?

Mr. LADNER. Those two parcels together, at the same time.

Mrs. MORELLA. OK. The Washington Post also reported that a

spokesman for American University said the University relied on

information from the Army and the EPA. This is referring to the

same year the developers sold the property next door to you—the

Loughlins’—the American University purchased your house and

the lot from the same developer. I think that’s probably safe to say?

OK.

The Washington Post also reported that a spokesman for AU said

the University relied on information from the Army and the EPA.

What information did the University receive from the Army and

the EPA concerning toxic contaminants on the American University

campus and the property on Glenbrook Road?

Mr. LADNER. You have already heard testimony earlier from the

EPA representative that the mindset throughout the period until

1993 was not looking for chemical contamination, it was looking for

munitions. And indeed the staff and administration at American

University were concerned about finding shrapnel, which they did

in 1994, even finding a dummy bomb which they did earlier, and

so forth. And we took seriously the reports that were given to us

by the experts, which we had invited in, and on least three different occasions—you quoted from one—the October 29 report said

very explicitly there’s nothing to worry about, there are no munitions burials here, there are no harmful munitions, etc. So we took

that information and relied on it.

Mrs. MORELLA. Semantics is so very important in terms of how

you interpret something, what it is—‘‘is’’ is at any particular point.

I’ve often said sometimes to tell the truth, the whole truth, and

nothing but the truth can mean three different things; so we have

to be very careful with that.

I want to go to Colonel Fiala. Sir, could you enlighten us in

terms of what the process has been for obtaining permission from

property owners to test property? And it is the understanding of

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the subcommittee that less than half of those 1,200 property owners have signed the right of entry form. Can you update us on the

status?

Colonel FIALA. Yes, ma’am. Let me update you on the whole process that we came about in developing a comprehensive sampling

plan. We worked with our partners at EPA. Now, again this is soil

contamination. So we kind of leaned very hard on the EPA to work

with us on developing a soil sample protocol. That work transpired

in February of this year.

In March of this year, we had a community meeting where we

laid out a draft plan to the community. That plan had already been

coordinated by the EPA. It had been coordinated with the D.C.

Health Department. We got their comments. A month later we

came back and had refined our plan based on their comments,

based on further comments from our partners in the EPA and D.C.

Health, and briefed the community on our sampling plan.

To date, we have got the rights of entry of—we have 1,200 properties, homeowners that we have to get rights of entry on, and

there’s another 400 sites divided up into half-acre parcels in the

area. To date, we have rights of entry of a little over 650 of that

1,200.

Now, we aren’t sitting on our hands with that. We have folks

personally calling people in the neighborhood, knocking on doors,

making sure they have the rights of entry forms and taking, in my

view, a very aggressive posture in trying to get these. Now, this is

the summertime, so some people may be out of the town for the

summer and we may have to wait until this fall. But we’re continuing aggressively to push getting these rights of entry forms signed

so we can enter their property.

Mrs. MORELLA. So let’s say you have reason to believe that a certain neighborhood has high levels of arsenic and you have not been

able to acquire permission from the owners; you don’t have that

right of entry. Do you have the power to test the soils? Can you

test it anyway?

Colonel FIALA. We haven’t stumbled onto that at this point, and

in fact the heightened media attention has kind of moved that

process forward and—— Mrs. MORELLA. So you haven’t had anybody who’s refused

that——

Colonel FIALA. We haven’t. Now, initially in some of our operations we did. We had some areas back around the AU property

and the Korean ambassador’s property. We had 61 properties that

we wanted to sample. Of that, initially we got 42 properties that

were sampled in late summer and in the fall of 2000. Eight additional properties—as we started getting out there and taking samples, then eight additional property owners came forward and said

you could sample that. And we did that sampling in January and

February 2000. In that specific year, we still have a couple properties that we’re still waiting for—waiting.

This is a gradual process. As we further get out there, and with

the heightened media and our outreach program and through the

RAB, and through our newsletters and through our Web site and

through our personal phone calls with the property owners, we’re

confident we’re going to get——

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Mrs. MORELLA. But you don’t have the power to do it?

Colonel FIALA. I don’t have the power to—— Mrs. MORELLA. You can use other means. What do you do when

you find that the soil has been contaminated and there are problems? What do you do?

Colonel FIALA. The first step is we’re taking a sample of the soil.

We run it through a lab. This is the same lab that we’ve used

throughout the operation. So we want to make sure we are consistent with the data we’re getting out. If you have elevated composite

samples above the background level, which is about 18 parts per

million, we then go in and further refine the sampling process in

about a 20-meter—20-foot square, take detailed samples, and further test that if there’s an elevated. If not, we won’t do any testing.

And this is in conjunction with the D.C. Health Department and

EPA. When we get the results from the labs, we immediately provide that to the property owners so they know right away what the

data is and what it means.

Mrs. MORELLA. And do you correct it?

Colonel FIALA. Well, again if it’s above the background levels,

we’ll go back in and further—in a refined sampling program or

process to refine where the contamination is. Once we’ve refined

the contamination, there’s a risk assessment that is done in conjunction with the EPA, in conjunction with the D.C. Health Department, to determine whether or not you have to physically remove

the soil or that it can stay there.

Mrs. MORELLA. But the Army does that—— Colonel FIALA. Yes. And then we go and do it. So, for example,

we went through that process in the backyard of the Korean ambassador’s property, and the determination—where we found the

samples, we did a detailed sample, found where the contamination

was, went through the risk analysis process, and determined in

consultation with EPA and D.C. Health Department that we would

remove 2 feet of soil from the backyard of the Korean ambassador’s

property. So that’s the process.

Mrs. MORELLA. You mentioned the standard 43? I thought—EPA

is 43—— Colonel FIALA. The composite sample background that says OK,

we need to go back and do some more work is 18 parts per million.

Mrs. MORELLA. 18. I see. But EPA is 43.

Colonel FIALA. EPA’s figure for doing some remediation is 43

parts per million. So we’re taking a very conservative approach on

that.

Mrs. MORELLA. Right. You are. Probably with great validity.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Colonel FIALA. Madam, let me correct that. It’s not 18. It’s 13 in

the grid sampling, not 18; so we’ve even gone down further.

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Ladner, is it not the case that the University

has just had approved an ambitious expansion plan for the campus?

Mr. LADNER. I wouldn’t call it ambitious actually, but we have

had a 10-year plan approved——

Ms. NORTON. Is it not limited to almost 1 million square feet?

Mr. LADNER. No, 400,000.

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Ms. NORTON. Over the next 10 years?

Mr. LADNER. 10 years.

Ms. NORTON. That will, of course, involve excavation of soil and

the like in the area?

Mr. LADNER. Right.

Ms. NORTON. Would you not believe that a complete environmental assessment should be made before we kick up more dirt on

your campus or in the Spring Valley area and before any construction begins?

Mr. LADNER. Two things are relevant there, Delegate Norton.

One is we have had a letter from the D.C. Health Department indicating that this environmental approach that you speak of should

not be cause for holding up the approval of the campus plan. And

that was on record as part of the proceedings in the campus plan,

deliberations by the Zoning Commission.

The second thing is we absolutely agree that before any site—we

would do this anyhow. In fact in 1986, this is how we discovered

and why the Army came in and so forth. For each site, we intend

to do just that. Third—— Ms. NORTON. Excuse me. What is it you intend to do for each

site?

Mr. LADNER. To have the testing for the soil done completely for

the site. And third—— Ms. NORTON. To make sure there is no chemical—— Mr. LADNER. Exactly.

Ms. NORTON. What about the very process of excavating soil and

the rest? Are you going to take precautions to see to it that it is

not airborne and otherwise become—what precautions will you

take?

Mr. LADNER. I am not an expert. We will take all the precautions

that we are told to follow by the experts.

Ms. NORTON. That’s very important, Dr. Ladner. If all you do is

to hire your usual contractor and say go to it, we’re going to have

more of what we’ve already had in the Spring Valley area. It does

seem to me that very specialized work has to be done for any construction in that area.

Mr. LADNER. I didn’t mean by experts, the construction company.

I meant the EPA, I meant consultants that we ourselves hired.

We’ve hired toxicologists, environmental experts, etc. We intend to

continue to employ those people as experts onsite.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very. That certainly is reassuring, and

I think it’s going to be very important for you to work with the

community in this regard as well. You have a controversial plan of

expansion going on, Dr. Ladner, and we are very pleased to have

universities in our area, but you have to understand that already

most of the land in this town is taken from the taxpayers by a combination mostly of the Federal Government and private universities. They claim to give back a lot to the community. Almost everybody they employ lives in Maryland and Virginia, and so if

you—if we are a little skeptical about expansion plans, especially

in an area which has had this kind of environmental problem, you

will have to forgive us. But you are housed in a community that

is among our highest-income communities, that contributes disproportionately to a government which cannot charge commuter

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taxes, that people come and use all the services. So that we are

very—we embrace this community, we hug this community.

They pay the taxes that American University and Georgetown,

my own University where I still teach, and AU and Howard do not

pay. So I’m going to ask you if you are—I know you have the signoff of our city and the approval of your expansion plan, but I am

going to ask you to work very closely with this community, which

has lived through a fiscal crisis with us, is a community of great

concern to us, a community where the property values are continuing to go up, and a community, frankly, that we live off disproportionately.

I’m going to ask you, since you don’t live off us, since you do not

contribute to the Government of the District of Columbia, since the

Government of the District of Columbia does not even have what

New Haven and Boston have, which is a fair—a plan whereby universities at least contribute what they can to the city and its upkeep, something that the District of Columbia ought to do forthwith. At the very least, I’m going to ask you to work far more closely with the community as you embark on this construction.

You have a very angry community up there. I think they are as

angry with AU as they are with the Army Corps of Engineers,

frankly, and I think there is repair work that needs to be done with

that community, including working very closely with them, listening to them about your expansion plans, being able to compromise

with them with respect to your expansion plans. Every inch that

you expand takes revenue from the District of Columbia that it

does not have.

So I’m going to ask that of you publicly, in the name of a community that we rely on and that I think has lived through terrible

times, with very little coming back to it, but nevertheless has been

steadfast. Can I get a commitment from you to work more closely

with the community?

Mr. LADNER. Delegate Norton, we’re not talking about expanding

the property that we do not already own, so there is no property

taken off the tax rolls. We’re talking about developing buildings on

our campus, A.

B, last year we contributed more than $400 million to the Washington, DC, economy.

C, there were——

Ms. NORTON. What does that mean? I’m going to stop you there,

Mr. Ladner. In what way?

Mr. LADNER. In terms of our taxes, in terms of payments for

services, a whole raft of things, and I would be happy to share

the——

Ms. NORTON. I wish you would submit in detail to this

committee——

Mr. LADNER. Be happy to.

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. Your payment of taxes.

Mr. LADNER. Be happy to do that.

Ms. NORTON. To the Army, I have been very concerned about a

distinction that you have relied on throughout this hearing between munitions, on the one hand, and chemical contamination on

the other. Everybody knew that we were talking about World War

I munitions. Is it your testimony that you expected that there

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would be World War I munition that would not leak out some contamination into the soil and that therefore all you’ve got to do is

look at the weapon itself, and that shouldn’t lead you to look for

chemical residue that might come from munitions made as long ago

as World War I?

Colonel FIALA. Ma’am, I’ll respond to that, to your question.

When the Corps of Engineers Baltimore District was asked and

given the mission to come into the community for the first time in

February 1993, our focus was on burial pits and trenches and looking for chemical munitions in the components lab equipment, those

kinds of things, in the manufacture of the chemical weapons and

the testing process that was done at AU. That was the focus.

We developed a plan where we went through and identified areas

we call points of interest. We went back and did some sampling

and did some excavations in those areas, and that effort resulted

in us finding, in addition to the rounds that were found in phase

1 of this operation, about 144 munitions.

At the same time, we took samples of the chemical components

directly related to the manufacture of lewisite and mustard gas.

We did not look for arsenic because we were focused on finding

buried pits and trenches and munitions, and we took these samples

in conjunction with that, and that was the process between 1993

and 1995.

Ms. NORTON. And that may have been the source of much of the

problem here. My concern here is not that the Army buried this in

1921 or whatever, but that by 1986, for example, it would have—

it seems to me to be impossible to believe that once there were munitions, there would not also be chemicals including perhaps arsenic. Heaven knows what they are, but munitions aren’t so airtight that they would remain munitions.

So, one, you know you’re looking for munitions. It seems to me

that it would follow that you’re looking for chemicals that leaked

from munitions. And yet Mr. Reardon’s testimony, your testimony

seems to be that the search was for munitions, and if that’s what

we had uncovered, we didn’t have any obligation to look beyond the

compact thing called a munition to see whether those munitions

had begun to seep out into the soil or elsewhere.

Colonel FIALA. Ma’am, we did take soil samples around the pits

that we found munitions, and again we were looking for the components that are related, the chemical materials that were related to

munitions and the chemicals, the chemical properties of those.

We did not take arsenic. The EPA took on the arsenic level testing, and again one of the reasons for that is because, again, I’ll go

back to the science that we’re dealing with here. We were looking

for munitions and chemical weapons. Arsenic is a naturally occurring—I know we’ve heard testimony before—naturally occurring in

the environment, heavy metal. It is also used extensively in pesticides. It’s used extensively as a treatment of a wood preservative.

So our focus was to find the science to look for munitions buried

and the chemical components to those, and we were concerned with

the leaching out of that material. We took samples in those points

of interest and found nothing elevated.

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Ms. NORTON. Are you concerned at the criticism about the way

you dug initially, and the incompetence that it is alleged characterized some of the not digging deep enough, etc?

Colonel FIALA. Ma’am, I haven’t heard any criticism about not

digging deep enough.

Ms. NORTON. It was in——

Colonel FIALA. I will tell you that we have been, as we have testified before—and it’s been common knowledge that we made a mistake in one point of interest in our operation between 1993 and

1995.

If you look at the map there, that’s 660 acres. We made a mistake in locating one point of interest 150 feet from where it was.

That mistake was based on an initial photographic interpretation

that was then further updated during the course of the operation.

It did not get back to the operators on the ground.

We made that mistake in 1993 and 1995. The D.C. government

Health Department and our review after they gave us a letter in

late 1996, early 1997. We conducted a review of our operation and

we found that we had made this mistake of 150 feet. When we

went back in——

Ms. NORTON. How did the District of Columbia find that out?

Colonel FIALA. They didn’t. They gave us a list of concerns, and

I think the number was 37 in the letter. And those were valid, and

we applaud their Herculean effort in the further refinement and research of the documents.

We then in the Baltimore District went back and did a review

and published a revised report in late 1997 and began operations

in 1998. We went back to this point of interest, 24, which is in the

backyard of the Korean ambassador’s property. As we went into

that hole, we found extensive munitions, and we started taking soil

samples with EPA, and we found elevated levels of arsenic contamination, as Mr. Voltaggio talked about before.

Then we started expanding the circle, and that is the process.

And we haven’t wavered from that process since the Baltimore

Corps of Engineers has been involved since 1993. You find some

contamination in a hole, whether it’s weapons material, you take

samples, and you begin to build out from that point of interest,

until you find clean soil. That’s been the process, and it continues

to be the process today.

Ms. NORTON. One further question. The District testified that its

grant had been cut so that it can’t do its own—as much of its own

soil samples as possible. I need to know why that occurs, and I

need to be assured that there will be no budgetary problems with

respect to the total cleanup. Can I get that assurance?

Mr. FATZ. Yes, ma’am. If you’re referring to Dr. Gordon’s statement that the $80,000 was cut——

Ms. NORTON. I am.

Mr. FATZ. I will personally get with Dr. Gordon and explain why

that money was withdrawn. It wasn’t obligated, and I will get with

Dr. Gordon and tell him how he can get more money. There’s a

process for that and I will explain that.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

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Colonel FIALA. Ma’am, I would like to point out that this is the

first time we heard requested that D.C. government would like to

conduct separate soil samples, so we will support that effort.

Ms. NORTON. I very much appreciate that. I appreciate that has

come out and that you are willing to work with the District. You

believe you are adequately funded to do the complete cleanup?

Colonel FIALA. I’m the operator on the ground, ma’am. I’m adequately funded for my current operations. And let me point out

when we worked the extensive and comprehensive sampling plan

starting in February, and started work in that with community

outreach and getting their opinions, and working with the EPA and

the Department of Health, the Department of the Army stood up

and gave me additional money to conduct that operation.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, and thank you, Madam

Chair.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. Let me ask you, perhaps it’s Colonel

Fiala or maybe Mr. Fatz who would respond. What has the Army

spent so far? And then, what is the cost of sampling each of the

1,200 properties? And then I’m curious also about how much is

budgeted for sampling and remediation and how much has already

been spent on sampling, including the restoration, and how much

has been spent on remediation?

Mr. FATZ. OK. If we can do this as a tag team, I’ll answer the

overall. To date, we have spent $50 million at Spring Valley and

that includes $10 million this year. We went into the fiscal year

2001, and it was budgeted for $3 million, and we had to find $7

million in our program to bring it up to the $10 million that the

Baltimore District required to do the sampling after the arsenic

find.

Mrs. MORELLA. What’s the breakdown—— Colonel FIALA. With regards to your question about the sampling,

our estimate right now, it’s going to cost between $3 million to $5

million, and that’s going to depend on how often and to what level

we need to go back and do further sampling or refine it. And that

will depend on what kind of initial results we get back in our initial sampling.

Mrs. MORELLA. Could you break it down on each of the properties, approximately what the cost is? I think there’s—— Colonel FIALA. And we’d—I’d like to submit that for the record.

Mrs. MORELLA. You certainly may. You may submit that to the

record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mrs. MORELLA. And tell me about your technologies. What technology did you use in 1986 and in 1993 to detect the burial sites?

And then, what are you doing today?

Colonel FIALA. Yes, ma’am. When we started the geophysical surveys in 1993, again, we started in 1993, not in 1986. We used an

instrument that’s referred to as the EM–31. It is an instrument

that was—the right instrument to look for buried munitions and

mass locations of buried munitions and the metal signature that

they provide. And there’s been criticism that we aren’t using the

right piece of equipment. In our role of looking for these things, our

experts in this business of ordnance discovery are convinced that

we are.

There’s been some minor technical improvements to the EM–31.

There’s been further improvements in GIS; in other words, where

you are on the ground, refinement that allows us to improve the

physics of how you determine whether or not you need to dig or

not. In addition to that—at the request of the D.C. Health Department, we are going to conduct some testing with some other more

modern equipment to determine whether or not we can use those,

and that testing is going to be conducted in late August, going into

September. Based on those results, we will go back to areas where

we jointly have some concerns—and when I say jointly, that’s us,

the EPA and the Health Department—and use that technology.

Mrs. MORELLA. Colonel Fiala, I really don’t understand EM–31

or GIS, GIS, but I hope that what you are saying to me is that you

have the best available, latest technology that you are employing.

Colonel FIALA. You’ve summarized it better than I have, ma’am.

Mrs. MORELLA. Just one final question, and I don’t mean to ignore everybody. That’s really been the difficulty because we’d like

to spend time with each one of you and go through a whole litany

of questions, but time doesn’t truly allow it. Maybe for Mr.

Reardon, General Reardon, is a criminal investigation being conducted by your agency or other agencies of the Federal Government

regarding the Spring Valley project?

Mr. REARDON. Ma’am, Army audit would not be doing a criminal

investigation, wouldn’t be our area, and I know of no criminal investigation being done by anyone in the Army over Spring Valley.

Mrs. MORELLA. Is there anyone on the panel who feels qualified

to respond to that? We had heard there might be.

Colonel FIALA. Ma’am, I’ll respond to that because I have employees that have been interviewed. It’s my understanding there is an

investigation being conducted by the EPA, and in their investigation they’re interviewing employees and other Federal officials that

were involved in this operation in 1993 to 1995. So they have been

interviewed, and I know this because they have interviewed a couple of our people.

Mrs. MORELLA. Do you have any idea of the scope of the investigation?

Colonel FIALA. No, ma’am. I just know that they come in and

interview.

Mrs. MORELLA. This is a question we’ll direct to the EPA in writing.

I’m going to defer to the ranking member. I have no further

questions to ask you, but I would like to submit questions for the

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record for you to answer as expeditiously as possible, and I thank

you.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mrs. Morella. I have only a couple of

more things today.

One, I want to make sure that I understood President Ladner

correctly. I certainly understand that his—that the expansion

that’s been approved is expansion on the AU campus. Do I understand you to say that you do not intend to acquire properties on

the south side of what you now own?

Mr. LADNER. No, I would not say that. We have purchased a couple of buildings in the last 5 to 6 years, and we hold open that option as any other legal entity has in the city.

Ms. NORTON. So your response to me was not entirely candid

then. You’re saying as of now you intend to expand on the AU campus, but you add that you still purchase properties outside of your

campus, and therefore you might expand beyond the campus confines.

Mr. LADNER. Congresswoman Norton, I was responding to a discussion about the campus plan as you laid it out, and so I intended

to be doing it in that context. I’m glad you asked this further question because it’s my understanding you were talking about the

campus plan.

Ms. NORTON. And the campus plan does then include not only

the campus, but any properties you may acquire?

Mr. LADNER. No, it does not.

Ms. NORTON. The campus plans means you will be expanding

only on property you own now?

Mr. LADNER. That’s right.

Ms. NORTON. That’s important.

Madam Chair, I want to ask that included in the record be a list

of addresses in Spring Valley and diseases which people—and the

diseases that people at these addresses have acquired. I have no

idea——

Mrs. MORELLA. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you. I have no idea whether these residents—there’s a pattern here sometimes on specific blocks—would

have acquired these diseases in the first place, and the last thing

we ought do is draw the conclusion that because a set of people

have cancers, for example, and other diseases that there’s a causeeffect relationship established. I ask for their inclusion in the

record for one reason only, and that is to fortify and reinforce what

from me is a major contribution we can make, and that is to get

the earliest health studies so that people can take whatever precautions they need to take to avoid health risks, and so that the

Federal Government can do whatever it can to prevent health risks

to this community.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mrs. MORELLA. Again, I want to thank you for spending the day

with us and for the information that you have given this subcommittee. As you probably have gathered, when we pull all our

material together and look at what further needs to be done, we

will be working with you, and we will be moving ahead beyond

this. Thank you all very much.

The hearing is now adjourned, and I want to thank our staff for

the work that they have done: Russell Smith, Heea Fales, Rob

White, Matt Batt, Howard Denis and John.

[Whereupon, at 3:07 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statement of Hon. Thomas M. Davis and additional information submitted for the hearing record follow:]

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