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THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION PROGRAM

AT SPRING VALLEY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE,

POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT

OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 10, 2009

Serial No. 111–20

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

——— ———

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT OF

COLUMBIA

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, Chairman

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

WILLIAM MILES, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 10, 2009 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Davis, Addison, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Environment, Safety, and

Occupational Health, U.S. Army; Colonel Peter Mueller, U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers; William C. Early, Acting Regional Administrator,

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and George S. Hawkins, Director, D.C. Department of the Environment .................................................. 123

Davis, Addison ...........................................................................................

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Early, William C. ....................................................................................... 141

Hawkins, George S. ................................................................................... 148

Mueller, Colonel Peter .............................................................................. 132

Kerwin, Cornelius M., president, American University; Nan Shelby Wells,

ANC commissioner 3D03; Thomas Smith, ANC commissioner 3D02;

Kent Slowinski, former member, Spring Valley Restoration Advisory

Board; Gregory A. Beumel, chairman, Spring Valley Restoration Advisory Board; and James Barton, president, Underwater Ordnance Recovery, Inc. .......................................................................................................... 172

Barton, James ............................................................................................ 233

Beumel, Gregory A. ................................................................................... 226

Kerwin, Cornelius M. ................................................................................ 172

Slowinski, Kent ......................................................................................... 214

Smith, Thomas .......................................................................................... 187

Wells, Nan Shelby ..................................................................................... 179

Mittal, Anu K., Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office; and Harold Bailey, Garvey Schubert

Barer .............................................................................................................. 14

Bailey, Harold ............................................................................................ 37

Mittal, Anu K. ........................................................................................... 14

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

Bailey, Harold, Garvey Schubert Barer, prepared statement of .................. 39

Barton, James, president, Underwater Ordnance Recovery, Inc., prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 234

Beumel, Gregory A., chairman, Spring Valley Restoration Advisory

Board, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 228

Blumenauer, Hon. Earl, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Oregon, prepared statement of ................................................................ 12

Chaffetz, Hon. Jason, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Utah, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 6

Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 120

Davis, Addison, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Environment, Safety, and

Occupational Health, U.S. Army, prepared statement of .......................... 126

Early, William C., Acting Regional Administrator, U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, prepared statement of .................................................. 143

Hawkins, George S., Director, D.C. Department of the Environment, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 151

Kerwin, Cornelius M., president, American University, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 175

Lynch, Hon. Stephen F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 3

Mittal, Anu K., Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of .............................. 17

Page

IV

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

Mueller, Colonel Peter, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 134

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the District

of Columbia, prepared statement of ............................................................ 9

Slowinski, Kent, former member, Spring Valley Restoration Advisory

Board, prepared statement of ...................................................................... 216

Smith, Thomas, ANC commissioner 3D02, prepared statement of .............. 190

Wells, Nan Shelby, ANC commissioner 3D03, prepared statement of ......... 183

(1)

THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION

PROGRAM AT SPRING VALLEY

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE, POSTAL

SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen F. Lynch

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Lynch, Norton, Cummings, Kucinich,

Clay, Connolly, Chaffetz, and Bilbray.

Staff present: William Miles, staff director; Marcus A. Williams,

clerk/press secretary; Jill Crissman, professional staff; Aisha

Elkheshin, intern; Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member

liaison; Howard Denis, minority senior counsel; and Alex Cooper,

minority staff member.

Mr. LYNCH. Good afternoon. The Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia will now come

to order.

Well, I welcome our ranking member, Mr. Chaffetz, members of

the subcommittee, hearing witnesses, and all those in attendance.

Today’s hearing will examine the recent progress or lack thereof of

the restoration program at the Spring Valley development. We will

discuss the current and future criteria that will be used in declaring the site clear of environmental health contaminants and assess

the level of transparency and/or community engagement associated

with the cleanup.

The Chair, ranking member, and subcommittee members will

each have 5 minutes to make opening statements. All Members

will have 3 days to submit statements for the record.

Ladies and gentlemen, again let me welcome you to the second

of what will be a series of oversight hearings on federally related

District of Columbia issues which the subcommittee intends to hold

during the first session of the 111th Congress. At the urging of the

gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms. Eleanor Holmes Norton, today’s hearing was convened to discuss the latest developments in the cleanup and restoration of the Spring Valley formerly

used defense site located in the northwest quadrant of our city.

For decades, residents living in the community surrounding

Spring Valley and the campus of American University have had to

endure disruptions of their land and their livelihood as the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the EnvironVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:41 Dec 14, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\53572.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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mental Protection Agency, and local D.C. governing agencies have

worked to remedy various environmental and health hazards stemming from past usage of the 661 acre site by the U.S. Army for the

development and testing of chemical agents, equipment, and munitions during World War I.

While wholly unacceptable by today’s standards, the U.S. Army

closed the doors on the Spring Valley site immediately following

the conclusion of World War I. Instead of responsibly disposing of

these dangerous materials, the agency simply dug holes in the

ground, buried the site’s remnants, and walked away.

Well, nearly 90 years has passed since the days of the American

University Experimental Station and Camp Leach yet even today

ordnance, metallic debris, chemical agent breakdowns, and

unexploded munitions continue to be discovered, investigated, and

in most cases removed from the Spring Valley site.

To their credit, since the 1993 discovery of buried ordnance by

a local utility worker and the premature termination of field work

in the 1995 site clean declaration, the Corps and its partners have

made substantial progress in cleaning up and remediating Spring

Valley. With over $170 million spent, the Corps has removed thousands of cubic yards of arsenic contaminated soil, disposed of hundreds of munitions and ordnance related debris, and identified and

investigated dozens of points of interest within Spring Valley, all

while attempting to keep the community informed of the project’s

progress through the Spring Valley Restoration Advisory Board.

Despite the gains made over the past 15 years in restoring

Spring Valley, the fact of the matter is that a great number of

questions and concerns continue to persist around the Spring Valley cleanup process: the methodology and science employed, the

level of transparency involved, and the Corps’ proposed timeline for

field work and/or project completion. Today’s hearing is intended to

get answers to some of these critical questions and problems, and

to bring about the ultimate environmental restoration of Spring

Valley and the reassurance to its residents that the area no longer

poses potential harmful and hazardous health risks.

I appreciate the participation of today’s witnesses and, more importantly, having their assistance in helping the subcommittee ascertain what future course of actions should be taken with regard

to the Spring Valley cleanup project.

I now yield for a 5-minute opening statement to the ranking

member, Mr. Chaffetz.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen F. Lynch follows:]

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding

this hearing today. In 2001 and 2002, the old District of Columbia

Subcommittee, then chaired by Representative Connie Morella,

held hearings on the status of the cleanup of contaminated sites in

the Spring Valley area. Today we will revisit some of those issues

discussed in those hearings to see what sort of progress has been

made and what the prospects are for the future.

After the United States of America declared war against the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1917, the Spring

Valley area was used as a testing site by the Army for munitions

and chemical agents. It is now referred to as a formerly used defense site. Today, Spring Valley is home to the American University and to hundreds of homes first developed in the 1920’s.

In 2002, the GAO issued a report on the environmental contamination and uncertainties which were continuing to affect the

progress of the Spring Valley cleanup. The report evaluated the

health risks associated with the hazards identified and removed

from Spring Valley, and evaluated the Corps’ estimated cost and

cleanup schedule.

It is important for all to know and for the witnesses to address

whether or not there are remaining health risks and to clarify the

duration and costs of the cleanup. Clearly, the Federal Government

has a responsibility to make sure the contaminants are removed in

their totality.

I look forward to hearing about the status of the Spring Valley

cleanup from our distinguished witnesses. I thank you all for your

participation, your willingness to be here.

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jason Chaffetz follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. Now I would like to recognize really the

person who has been the catalyst for the ongoing work, someone

who has spent far more time than I have on this issue. She has

really done a fantastic job, in my opinion, in representing the people of Spring Valley and the entire District. I must say that if I

were someone living in D.C., if I were someone living in the Spring

Valley neighborhood, I would be very happy with the way Ms. Eleanor Holmes Norton has handled her responsibility. I would feel

very reassured in the way she has handled this issue and her absolute vigilance on behalf of the people that she represents. It is

heartwarming to see. So with that, I recognize the gentlelady from

the District of Columbia for 5 minutes for an opening statement.

Ms. NORTON. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for those

very gracious comments. I very much appreciate Chairman Lynch’s

willingness to schedule this hearing early on our subcommittee

agenda. I listed Spring Valley as one of my top priorities in a letter

to the Chair as the legislative year began because of the national

and local importance of confronting Federal responsibility for informing residents of toxic substances in communities, particularly

when the Federal Government itself deposited them there and has

an undisputed responsibility to clean the area and to shoulder the

burden of proof of showing that the area is again safe.

I appreciate that, beginning in my early years in Congress when

I was in the minority, this committee has held every hearing that

I have requested to assure that the Spring Valley neighborhood

surrounding American University is cleared of World War I chemical and other weapons by the Army Corps of Engineers.

I ask my colleagues to put themselves in the position of my

Spring Valley constituents who have worked hard to purchase

homes in one of the District’s most attractive neighborhoods. By

sheer happenstance a utility worker discovers a cache of old weapons and in short order they are identified as buried chemical ordnance left behind by the Army.

There are similar areas called formerly used defense sites or

FUDS around the country where munitions have been buried and

cleaning is necessary. However, they are usually far from densely

populated areas. We know of no other FUDS in a major city where

a residential area was developed around and on top of the FUDS

without the Government disclosing that it had buried potentially

harmful munitions.

Munitions were also buried in other areas in the District, in

northeast and southeast, but Spring Valley is the largest uncleaned

residential area here where munitions were buried. Yet at the time

there was no doubt, at the very time when this testing was going

on there could have been no doubt, that this area where American

University after all was already located would be even more fully

developed.

The history of Spring Valley is long and convoluted, but at its

core is the Army’s decision during World War I to use this area in

the northwest of the District for the first dangerous tests and experiments with its new and developing chemical weapons program.

The decision to locate a major chemical testing facility and then

to bury the debris, unexploded ordnance, and chemicals on the site

here was no accident. The District had no local government. Its

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citizens could elect no one to speak for them in the city where they

lived, and no one to represent them in the Congress which collected

their taxes. The Federal Government itself ruled the city using federally appointed commissioners. Thus the Army was free to do here

what it could not due in Maryland, Virginia, or any other State

close to a residential area.

As many as 800,000 District residents had no vehicle for information on what the Army was doing in their city and no right to

know. The District of Columbia was for all these war time chemical

experiments what poorer nations are today when they receive landfill garbage, scrap metal, and other waste that Americans do not

want in their communities.

As the Spring Valley community more fully developed, the Army

continued to fail to inform the District or the Spring Valley residents of the munitions and the possible dangers they might pose.

In fact, during the 1950’s and again in the 1980’s American University and others raised concerns about buried munitions in Spring

Valley, but it was not until 1993 that the Army Corps finally declared the site a FUDS. That was only after a utility worker accidentally stumbled upon buried ordnance.

Since that discovery, the Corps has left Spring Valley twice concluding that no large hazards remain. Both times, the Corps had

to return for more cleaning. Only the oversight of this subcommittee has assured continuing cleanup of Spring Valley. Now the

Corps of Engineers has again announced to the community that it

intends to leave the area in 2 years. However, Mr. Chairman, the

Corps neither informed this committee, despite our oversight over

the years, or me, the city’s only elected congressional official. I

learned of the Corps’ intention from my Spring Valley constituents.

The Corps had no right to announce its exit without more, especially considering the many errors and mishaps so far and in an

absence of transparency over the years that borders on suppression

of information. Neither Congress nor the community has seen the

Corps’ 2 year exit plan or any evidence that the area has been

cleaned. Appropriate oversight by the Environmental Protection

Agency has been in question. The decision to destroy the munitions

onsite raises a host of additional issues. No objective evaluation

has been done to assure that this time there is no more ordnance

in the area.

This hearing and any others that may be required seek and must

obtain the answers the District and the residents of Spring Valley

are entitled to have before the Army leaves the Nation’s only residential site it once used to develop chemical munitions.

I thank our Spring Valley witnesses: Greg Beumel, Nan Wells,

Thomas Smith, Kent Slowinski, and Harold Bailey. I thank the

Army, the Army Corps, the EPA, the GAO, the D.C. Department

of Environment, our expert ordnance recovery expert Mr. Barton,

and President Kerwin of the American University. I very much

look forward to hearing from each and every one of you.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

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

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. At this time I would like to ask unanimous consent for the testimony of Congressman Earl Blumenauer

to be added to the record. Hearing no objections, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blumenauer follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Now I would like to welcome our first panel.

Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry; I am sorry. Before we go to that—

I apologize profusely—I would like to give 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California, my friend Mr. Bilbray, for 5

minutes.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I noticed

this hearing and it kind of caught my eye for a lot of reasons, not

just because we have a Spring Valley in San Diego County, too.

I would like to inform the Delegate that this isn’t the only urban

area where munitions are specifically an issue in a residential

neighborhood. In San Diego, if my memory serves me, we actually

in the 1980’s lost some children to unexploded munitions. In San

Diego we have many locations that are now residential that were

active military operations with live munitions in many different

forms, and in a lot of forms we don’t understand.

Even though we have two Senators and a countless amount of

Congressman in California, the fact is that Federal reservations

tend to have that degree of autonomy that is mandated by constitutional law. When those lands are turned over for private development later, we do have these issues.

I would just note that one of these sites in San Diego is actually

the site of the University of California at La Jolla. So I think this

issue really kind of points out that this is not just an issue of the

disadvantaged and the poor. This is a problem even the wealthy

and the powerful can run into as we have run into it in certain

places in California. Obviously, this is one of those neighborhoods

that everybody would never think would have a problem from looking at the homes. But I think that we need to address that.

I will tell you, we still have discussions in San Diego, watching

the canyons after the major fires that just occurred a few years

ago, of utilizing those fires as a way of going down and searching

to see if there are any more munitions in the neighborhoods where

our children are playing.

So I just wanted to reflect the fact to the Delegate that she is

not alone on this. D.C. is not the only community that has to face

these challenges. It may have different challenges. But I think the

issue of post-military utilization of property is going to be a challenge we have for a long time.

I want to make sure, though, that we approach this in a manner

that does not create an attitude, especially among our military,

that once property is used by the military you don’t dare allow civilian use in the future. I don’t want this to create a defensive

mechanism, if not a downright paranoid mechanism, that we can’t

allow it ever to be used again. Because there are a lot of good uses

after military use. It is just appropriate handling and addressing

the issues. Obviously, eliminating the problem before civilian use

is always the preferred state but even then there is going to have

to be a sensitivity of constant monitoring.

Mr. Chairman, a good example is the fact that we recycle sand

in California. There was the issue of military munitions that were

laying at the bottom of a bay that no one knew about being an

issue to where we recklessly threw away millions of metric tons of

good recycle sand. It was because of the paranoia, in my opinion,

of the munitions rather than addressing this appropriately.

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Hopefully we will be able to move forward and address this item

in an appropriate manner. It has obviously been one that has been

on the front burner for a long time. I appreciate this hearing.

I yield back.

Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentleman.

OK, now I would like to welcome our first panel. It is the custom

before this committee that all witnesses to provide testimony before

the subcommittee are sworn. Could I please ask you each to rise

and raise your right hand?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. LYNCH. Let the record indicate that each of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Just briefly, let me give some ground rules. The green light in

that little box in front of you in the middle of the table will indicate

you have 5 minutes to provide an opening statement. The yellow

light when it clicks will indicate that you have 1 minute remaining.

Then the red light indicates that the time allotted for your statement has expired.

I would like to provide just a brief introduction of the first two

witnesses: Ms. Anu K. Mittal is Director with the Natural Resources and Environment team of the U.S. Government Accountability Office. She is responsible for leading GAO’s work in the area

of water resources and defense environmental cleanup.

Mr. Harold Bailey is currently assisting Washington, DC, residents threatened by improperly disposed munitions. Mr. Bailey’s

projects have involved the application and enforcement of U.S. environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act,

the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

Ms. Mittal, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for an opening

statement.

STATEMENTS OF ANU K. MITTAL, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; AND HAROLD BAILEY, GARVEY SCHUBERT

BARER

STATEMENT OF ANU K. MITTAL

Ms. MITTAL. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,

thank you for inviting us today to provide some historical context

and a national perspective for the Spring Valley cleanup.

As you know, Spring Valley was designated as a formerly used

defense site or FUDS in 1993 after ordnance was discovered by accident. Further investigations at Spring Valley found additional

hazards including arsenic contaminated soil and lab waste. By

April 2002, the Corps had removed over 5,600 cubic yards of soil,

667 pieces of ordnance, and 101 bottles of chemicals. In 2003, the

Corps also discovered perchlorate in groundwater at the site and

so installed over three dozen monitoring wells for sampling. Since

2002, the Corps has continued cleanup at the site and has removed

large quantities of contaminated soil, hundreds of lab related items

and munitions debris, as well as some in tact munitions and containers.

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In fiscal year 2002, the total cost to clean up Spring Valley was expected to be about $147 million and take about 5 more years to

complete. However, 7 years later, cleanup is still ongoing and the

estimated costs have increased to almost $174 million.

Since we issued our Spring Valley report in 2002, we have conducted several reviews of DOD’s Environmental Restoration Program nationwide for both active installations and FUDS. Our work

at the national level shows that the concerns identified at Spring

Valley are not unique and are in fact common to many sites across

the country. Four key themes emerged from our work that we believe are directly relevant to the Spring Valley cleanup.

First, shortcomings in the use of available data can lead to poor

decisionmaking. The Army’s conclusions in 1986 and 1996 that

there was no evidence of large scale hazards remaining at Spring

Valley were made without the benefit of all available information.

Our nationwide review of FUDS found similar shortcomings in the

Corps’ use of available information for making decisions at over

1,400 sites across the country. We found that the Corps either did

not obtain, overlooked, or dismissed information that might have

indicated the presence of a hazard. Recently a major association of

State regulators has noted that these problems continue to persist.

Second, incomplete data onsite conditions and emerging contaminants can interfere with the development of accurate cost estimates

and schedules, just as the cost estimates at Spring Valley have increased almost eight and a half times since the initial estimate of

$21 million was developed. Developing cost estimates for FUDS

and active installations across the country pose a similar challenge.

This is because DOD often has incomplete information onsite conditions when it first makes cost estimates. As more information becomes available or as new contaminants are discovered, estimates

must be revised and can thus vary significantly over the life of a

project.

Third, funding availability for a particular site may be influenced

by overall program goals and priorities. Spring Valley is just one

of the over 4,700 FUDS nationwide that DOD is in the process of

cleaning up. However, Spring Valley has received priority funding

due to its proximity to the Nation’s Capital and high visibility. This

is usually not the case with most FUDS, and they must compete

for a slice of a relatively small funding pie. Although funding for

FUDS has been relatively stable over the last decade, it is well recognized that the level of funding available cannot meet all cleanup

needs.

Finally, better coordination and communication with regulators

and property owners can increase public confidence and facilitate

effective decisionmaking. In 2002, we reported that the Corps,

EPA, and the District of Columbia had made progress on Spring

Valley by adopting a partnership approach and establishing a

means of communicating with the public. However, we have found

that this kind of communication and coordination does not always

occur at other sites nationwide and can significantly hinder cleanup progress.

In response to the findings and recommendations that we have

made over the last 6 years, DOD has taken actions to modify its

procedures and improve its guidance. While we have not evaluated

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DOD’s implementation of our past recommendations in depth, we

are reviewing some of these issues as part of our ongoing work that

will be issued later this year.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, experiences with DOD’s national

cleanup program and the Spring Valley cleanup tell us that environmental restoration is a daunting task. But there are lessons

that can be applied to the process that can make it more effective

as we move forward.

This concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to respond to any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mittal follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. Mr. Bailey, you are now recognized for

5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF HAROLD BAILEY

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here today on behalf of several Spring Valley families who were unaware that their

children were playing in soil laced with arsenic or that those children could find containers that once held poison gases.

I am holding a piece of a container for phosgene gas found by

Frances Hansen’s young child in their backyard in 2002. The Army

and American University had rented a house to Ms. Hansen but

failed to warn her and other Spring Valley families about the potential exposure to AUES weapons of mass destruction despite the

historical, photographic, and physical evidence in their possession.

My law firm assists government officials who are assessing contamination left by the U.S. military. So let me explain why I think

the Army and AU need to do more research to locate and remove

WMD in Spring Valley. There is a 1918 photograph of the American University Experiment Station taken by Sergeant Maurer. It

shows ceramic containers and metal drums near a burial pit located near the current boundary of AU and Glenbrook Road.

There was a criminal investigation into the Army’s activities in

Spring Valley in 2000. EPA investigators learned that the Army

had obtained this Maurer photograph in 1993. So for 16 years the

Army has known approximately where the Maurer Pit is but has

not been able to locate its location.

In my experience, photographic evidence of a large burial site

with metal drums means that advanced geophysical devices could

locate that site. But as the ANC Commissioners will indicate, the

past geophysical detection methods used by the Army didn’t have

the capability to locate burial sites at deep depths or in hard to

reach locations. Without these more advanced geophysical methods

to locate the Maurer Pit, Spring Valley residents will always have

a gnawing feeling that a WMD site could be within several hundred yards.

One child in the Dudley family who played in the dirt in this

area experienced acute skin irritation similar to the symptoms

from exposure to lewisite. The Dudleys were never told of the

Maurer photograph and never warned that the Army had found

live shells on their property.

The May 1920 minutes of the AU Trustees record AU’s acceptance of a proposition by the U.S. Government to compensate AU.

Articles in the AU Courier newspaper explained that the Army had

dug a pit deeper than the one into which Joseph was cast for the

burial of $800,000 in chemical munitions. There are three points

that indicate that is not the Maurer Pit, and neither have been

found. There is no extremely deep pit that has been found. The munitions valued at $800,000 in 1919 dollars have not been found.

And burying large amounts of explosively configured munitions

along with mustard gas is not exactly a safe practice even in 1919.

Particularly troubling is that the Army and AU knew about the

potential presence of WMDs since 1986 when an EPA historical

photographic analysis showed ground scars indicating burial pits

on or near AU. The 1986 report was credible evidence of potential

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danger to Spring Valley families but this report was not disclosed

until many years later. It reflects a pattern of failure to warn and

failure to disclose material information under legal standards.

Let me summarize the AUES lawsuits that Congresswoman Norton asked me to cover: First, recovering compensation from the

U.S. Government for disposal of munitions is unlikely under judicial interpretations of the Federal Tort Claims Act. The AUES disposals are considered non-compensable discretionary acts, regardless of the dangers that are created.

Second, AU is not protected by this discretionary act exemption.

AU in fact settled a lawsuit after a Federal judge found that AU

failed to disclose information about the burials to a home buyer.

Third, the parties settling the various lawsuits have sealed their

court filings in many cases, thus preventing public disclosure of

what the litigants know about AUES burials.

Finally, the lawsuits have been a blame game where the protection of public health and the environment of Spring Valley has not

been addressed. The litigation is focused on monetary compensation rather than claims involving the Army or even EPA for failure

to comply with Federal environmental statutes that govern cleanups at FUDS. In July 2001, AU sued the Army for $86 million.

This lawsuit was an unsuccessful attempt to shift legal liability,

but the fact is that AU had accepted the Government’s 1920 propositions and compensation.

In conclusion, I believe that this subcommittee has the authority

to ensure that advanced scientific techniques are used to locate the

most dangerous WMD sites at Spring Valley. I ask that Congress

ensure that these techniques are used before the Army stops its investigation or remedial activities.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bailey follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

I will now yield myself 5 minutes for an opening question. Ms.

Mittal, in your testimony you indicated that at least the first mistake, the first of several mistakes on the part of DOD, is that they

did not make a good assessment of the likelihood that munitions,

mustard gas, or any other harmful substances were actually on the

site. Yet they issued a ‘‘no action necessary’’ and a rather clean assessment of the site. Is that due to the fact that records that could

have been reviewed were classified, was it just a lack of initiative

on the part of DOD and the Corps, or was it an assumption made

by the DOD? Can you determine what was at the basis of that significant error on their part?

Ms. MITTAL. What we have seen when we have looked at the

Corps’ decisions to claim that a site does not require further action

is that oftentimes they just don’t look at all of the information that

they have available to them.

When they made the decision in 1986, they had actually sent information to EPA. They had photographs that they had contracted

with EPA that they wanted EPA’s technical input on. Those photographs were not received by EPA until 1993. But the Corps had already made a decision in 1986 that they were going to go ahead

and say that this site didn’t need any further action.

That was what we found at the national level as well. When we

looked at ‘‘no action’’ indicated sites across the country, we found

that in 38 percent of the cases the Corps either didn’t obtain the

information it needed, it had incomplete files, it did not conduct the

site visits that it needed to do, or it just ignored some of the information that it had available to it.

What we found was that a large part of this was because the

guidance that the Corps had developed was not very explicit on

what investigators need to do in terms of looking at the documents,

what they need to document, and how they need to assess the documentation. So that is why we recommended that they definitely

needed to improve their procedures and improve their guidance.

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Bailey, you have been deeply involved in this. Do

you agree with that assessment? Is that sort of where they went

wrong?

Mr. BAILEY. I do. I think there have been numerous examples

where there was information available. I mentioned this 1986 photographic analysis that I think should have been widely shared.

There was a great deal of information available that didn’t get to

the right places. I agree with that.

Mr. LYNCH. Let me ask you then, each of you, having been involved in the process since 1995 and going forward, do you think

that DOD has changed their approach? You mentioned inadequate

guidance existing prior. Have we gotten our act together here?

Ms. MITTAL. Well, we know that DOD and the Corps have made

changes in response to our recommendations. We have not gone

back in and done an in depth evaluation to see if those changes

have resulted in positive action. Our concern is that recently a

State association of waste managers basically came out and found

that they are still very concerned about the decisions that DOD

and the Corps are making. So it sounds like the problem still exists

out there. We just have not gone back and taken a look at it.

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Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Bailey.

Mr. BAILEY. I have significant concerns that there are some potentially serious burial sites that have not been thoroughly looked

at from the perspective of historical, eyewitness, and other information. If we don’t look at that information and they close it, and it

comes up again, then we will know we have failed. So I would encourage the Corps and AU to use advanced geophysical techniques,

to use additional research techniques to get to the questions that

I have raised in my testimony. My written remarks are of six sites

that I think are important that have not been properly analyzed

as your question suggests.

Also, the destruction of chemical weapons that is going to go on

this summer, there is a question, I believe, in the community about

what exactly is going to go on with that destruction. I recognize

there are national security concerns about destroying chemical

weapons and that information. But I think some of the ANC Commissioners who are going to be testifying later have serious concerns about what chemicals are coming into the District, what is

being destroyed, what is going to be leaving the District, and where

the chemical weapons after they are neutralized are going to be

sent for ultimate destruction.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. At this time, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the ranking member, Mr. Chaffetz.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The GAO issued a report on the Spring Valley cleanup and testified before a subcommittee back on June 26, 2002. I recognize you may not have participated in that. In the GAO’s prior testimony before Congress, it was

stated that there was data on 58 properties in the District of Columbia where ‘‘hazards resulting from Federal activities have been

found.’’ Is that still the case and how much progress has been made

on any of those cases?

Ms. MITTAL. We currently are doing work looking at the whole

FUDS program. We are collecting information but we have not

completely analyzed that information yet. We would be happy to

share that with you as we develop the information that we have.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Yes. Given that there were 58 properties within

the District of Columbia that were identified previously, we would

certainly appreciate an update on the broader scope of everything

that is happening within the District. We would also appreciate an

update on what progress, if any, has been made in terms of those

cleanups, including the locations of those outstanding sites.

Congress was also told by the GAO in 2002 that ‘‘a number of

independent uncertainties continue to affect the program of the

Spring Valley cleanup.’’ Can you give us further insight into the

specifics from your vantage point, Ms. Mittal, regarding what has

been cleaned up? Can the community be given definitive answers

about any remaining health risks or costs or where your perspective is as to how far along this progress is?

Ms. MITTAL. Unfortunately, we have not done a comprehensive

assessment of Spring Valley since 2002. Most of the work that I

have sited is at the national level where we have been looking at

the FUDS program and the overall Defense Environmental Restoration Program.

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is there something that is going to be specifically

done? Is there a target date as to when you think it will be complete? Is it something that is close to completion?

Ms. MITTAL. At this point in time, we have not done a thorough

reassessment of the Spring Valley cleanup.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Is there one in progress?

Ms. MITTAL. There is not one in progress and we have not been

requested to do one. So I really can’t give you the more detailed

information that you are requesting at this time.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. OK. Mr. Bailey, if you had to highlight your biggest concern moving forward, if you had to really highlight this is

my No. 1 concern, what would that be?

Mr. BAILEY. Congressman, the area at the corner of Glenbrook

Road and Rockwood Parkway—I am a Superfund lawyer and I am

used to dumps and messes—is a dump site. The trouble is that

there is credible historic evidence of burial pits that could contain

chemical weapons, containers of mustard gas, or large amounts of

explosively configured chemical munitions. If the Corps never finds

these very deep pits and dispels thoughts of maybe there is nothing

there, maybe it has all leaked out, we will never know.

Those are inhabited places. The Korean ambassador’s residence

is there. There are other residences around. So until the day comes

that the Corps can find these deep pits or completely dispel the

credible evidence that we have, that they are not there, then we

won’t know. Like I said, there will be the gnawing feeling that we

would have after they left.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. As I recall, did you say that you thought there

were six of these?

Mr. BAILEY. My written testimony goes through the six sites that

I think are the most important. Obviously, there are many areas

of concern that have been looked at over the years. In terms of priority now, based on my experience of 10 years with the project,

those are the ones that seem to be the most important ones.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LYNCH. The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from the

District of Columbia, Ms. Eleanor Holmes Norton, for 5 minutes.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Mittal,

do you agree with the new cost estimates for the Army Corps’ 2

year plan that it is using as it proposes to exit?

Ms. MITTAL. The numbers that we have, we got from the Corps’

report to the Congress. We have not gone back and independently

evaluated whether those numbers are accurate.

Ms. NORTON. Well, I think that in light of your testimony about

how the Corps has underestimated the cost of cleanup, that would

seem to be important to do.

Mr. Bailey, I am concerned about your testimony about the deepest burials. You say they were either buried and may no longer, of

course, be viable or were poured out. Where would they have been

poured out?

Mr. BAILEY. Yes, Congresswoman. This is an example of a container that at one time was in tact and probably contained a phosgene gas. Over time, or even at the time, it was broken and the

contents were released.

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Those of us familiar with chemical weapons know that oftentimes

when the chemical weapon is released, it is neutralized and no

longer harmful. But the trouble is that we don’t know. We don’t

know whether there are in tact containers buried; we don’t know

whether there are explosive munitions buried that we haven’t

found.

Ms. NORTON. What did the Army give as the reason for not finding the Maurer Pit?

Mr. BAILEY. I concur that it is a difficult technical task because

some of these things could be down 20 or 30 feet. The types of geophysical detection devices that I use in my practice in Superfund

might not reach.

Ms. NORTON. What about the kind that the Army uses?

Mr. BAILEY. Well, they are the same, by the way. The same contractors that the Army used, I used.

Ms. NORTON. So you are saying it doesn’t exist, the technology

doesn’t exist?

Mr. BAILEY. The technology at the time did not exist. The technology is getting better. One question I hope the committee will explore is what are the most advanced techniques that could be used

to reach down further and see better.

Ms. NORTON. So what would be the evidence then of whether or

not there was anything harmful there if it was buried that deep?

Mr. BAILEY. Well, unfortunately the only evidence you would find

that it is harmful would be in groundwater monitoring. That, I

know, is going to be discussed later. If you detect it in groundwater

monitoring wells, that would be one indication. But if these things

are in tact, as they have found in tact shell elsewhere in this area,

you won’t know until you actually dig it up what is there.

Ms. NORTON. Is it clear that the perchlorate in the groundwater

is traceable to the ordnance?

Mr. BAILEY. It is likely but not sure. One thing that we do know

is perchlorate was used in fuses, the fusing of artillery, so it seems

likely that it comes from there. I know other Members have had

perchlorate in their districts. It comes from a wide variety of

things. It is likely, Congresswoman, likely.

Ms. NORTON. Given what you say about a site like this where

there can be ordnance buried so deep that it might never be found,

we are faced with the question of whether the Army Corps should

leave the site. How are we to know whether the Army Corps should

leave the site and engage in some lesser activity such as, for example, monitoring?

Mr. BAILEY. There are two criteria that Superfund types of situations would suggest. One is if the groundwater wells that are being

dug and going to be dug show contaminants that are below the risk

based criteria set by EPA in Region 3. Then you have some assurance that the groundwater that goes eventually into the Potomac

and other areas would not be a concern, and that things aren’t

leaking into there. It is a much more difficult question, Congresswoman, for buried munitions to find out what the criteria for that

are. But my personal criterion is that advanced geophysical techniques are used in the spots where historical evidence and photographic evidence show them to be. If there is a finding of

nothing——

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Ms. NORTON. But I thought you said that equipment was not

available.

Mr. BAILEY. Not at the time. Most of this geophysical activity

took place 10 years ago. The number of new geophysical investigations, I really don’t know. But certainly a number of the original

geophysical mapping was with technology that is fairly old.

Ms. MITTAL. May I add to that?

Ms. NORTON. Yes, Ms. Mittal.

Ms. MITTAL. I really think there are three things you need to

consider based on our experience with sites nationwide.

One is the transparency of the decisionmaking. I think both of

you mentioned earlier that it is really important, now as the Corps

makes a decision to leave the site, that it shares the information

that it is using to make that decision with regulators. One of the

things that we have found nationwide was that the Corps often

doesn’t involve the State regulators and the EPA in that decisionmaking process. It is very important that they do that because the

State regulators and EPA can ensure that the actions that the

Corps has taken comply with the regulatory standards. What we

have found nationwide is that, more often than not, it does not

happen. So that transparency is really important before the decision to leave the site happens.

The second thing that we would strongly recommend is that they

should share with the community and the stakeholders a long term

monitoring strategy. Obviously, there are a lot of things that we

don’t know about this site. We don’t know where they are buried.

But in the event that some new hazard is detected in the future,

there should be a robust, long term monitoring strategy for the

site.

The last thing that I would recommend is that the Corps really

needs to do extensive outreach with the residents of Spring Valley.

One of the things that we found when we did our nationwide work

is that the Corps often doesn’t contact the property owners and tell

them how and what they should do in the event that additional

contamination is discovered. So we believe that before the Corps

pulls out, they need to make that outreach to the residents. Because it is a partnership. The residents can help the Corps identify

new hazards if they come available, but they have to know who to

contact and what to do in that kind of situation.

So those are three things we would definitely recommend.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. I know I am over time. I just want to

clarify one thing in that answer if I may, Mr. Chairman.

What you have just said mentioning regulators suggests that the

Corps should not leave on the basis of its own evaluation, but only

after regulators have certified that in their independent judgment

it is safe to leave at this point. Is that your testimony?

Ms. MITTAL. We think that will add to the public’s confidence in

what the Corps has done if the regulators are involved in that decisionmaking process.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you.

Let me just again for further clarification ask a last question. I

know that in my own district back in Massachusetts we had a similar situation, although it was private oil companies that had caused

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the problem back then. Sometimes the community views Federal

agencies as the same. It is all the Federal Government. So sometimes, unfairly or not, there is the suspicion that there might be

collusion there among the Federal agencies, especially in cases like

this where mistakes have been made. The lack of trust can be pernicious.

We found that in at least one of those cases we were able to appoint an independent licensed site professional to be chosen by the

local community, a licensed and qualified professional to look behind all of the data and all of the research to really give an extra

level of approval to the cleanliness or the remediation that had occurred. Is that something that you might recommend here?

Ms. MITTAL. I think it makes a lot of sense to do something like

that. In our work what we have found is that the State regulators

can oftentimes provide that balance as well. The State regulators

have a responsibility to ensure that whatever cleanup has been

done has been done according to State requirements. So they can

provide that distance between the Federal entities and the community. They could function in that form as well.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. In closing, I do want to say I was happy to

hear your recommendations regarding ongoing monitoring. I hope

the agencies were listening closely to that suggestion because I

think it is a solid one.

At this time I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman

from Missouri, Mr. Clay, for 5 minutes.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you and Delegate Norton for prompting this hearing, for bringing this important issue to this committee. Delegate Norton is to be commended

for representing her constituents.

Ms. Mittal, let me ask you, would you characterize the DOD’s

and the Army Corps’ behavior in this issue as irresponsible, as

reckless, as one that endangers the lives of citizens in this community and in others?

Ms. MITTAL. That is a hard question to answer. What we have

found is that the Spring Valley site is actually one of the better

sites when you look at the national profile of FUDS sites. The Baltimore District is one of the districts that we have highlighted. It

has been very proactive in reaching out to the States that it works

with.

The Corps, EPA, and the District established a partnership,

which is very rare across the country, to actually work together on

the site. The Corps also established a means of communicating

with the public. That is also very rare across the country. The

other thing that we have noticed is that this has been a site that

has received extensive funding. It is a high priority site, and it receives funding before a lot of the other sites nationwide.

So it is very hard to make that sort of statement knowing that

there are a lot of positive things that have happened at this site

which we don’t see happening across the country.

Mr. CLAY. Sure. I can certainly share an experience with you

that I had a couple of years back about a munitions site that was

active during World War II and was just left there with contaminants. In the first congressional district of Missouri, we had an environmental cleanup of a munitions plant. The community still has

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some concerns in Saint Louis of chemical contamination in the soil,

groundwater contamination, and the testing of residents for health

reasons.

Could you supply us with documentation on the followup testing

and assessments that were done on the Saint Louis Army Ammunition Plant? It is called the SLAAP site. Can you inform me of the

followup testing on groundwater and if it has been done with the

state-of-the-art isotopic analysis that will be used in Spring Valley?

Will we or do we already have a remedial investigation report that

summarizes all samplings and all cleanup actions taken? Include

a baseline human health and environmental risk assessment.

Could you help me with that?

Ms. MITTAL. I can tell you, sir, that we probably don’t have that

sort of detailed information. We only end up collecting that kind of

information from the agency when we are asked to review a particular site in detail. We have not looked at the Saint Louis site

in detail, so we would not have that information available to us

right now. I am sure that the Corps could provide that information

to you much faster than if we went to the Corps and then got the

information. So I would strongly recommend asking the Corps for

that information.

Mr. CLAY. OK. I am asking you, here, in this hearing. I am going

to ask the Corps next when they get up here.

Ms. MITTAL. We will be happy to work with you.

Mr. CLAY. The experience in Saint Louis has been that they did

some cleanup of the site and quickly rushed to transfer the property to the State of Missouri, who is now trying to peddle it off to

the city of Saint Louis. That is irresponsible behavior when you

think about it. This site sat there for 60 years and they didn’t have

the decency to clean it up, to make it safe for the surrounding community. And now they want to peddle it off to the State and to the

local community.

I think it is reckless behavior. I think it is irresponsible. You

show no respect for health and safety of that community. You do

have a responsibility when you contaminate a community. You

need to clean it up. Clean up your mess. Clean up your waste that

you leave there. Don’t just leave it for somebody else. It is tragic.

I can’t wait to get to the next panel. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Clay. The Chair now recognizes the

gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kucinich, for 5 minutes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My questions go to Ms. Mittal. Did you have

access to the records of the Department of Defense going back to

1916 or 1917?

Ms. MITTAL. When we did our original Spring Valley review, we

had access to all of the Department’s records on the site.

Mr. KUCINICH. When you said onsite what did you mean?

Ms. MITTAL. For the site. Whatever was in the file for the site,

we had access to that information.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you confident that you looked at each and

every record that was available through the Department of Defense? There weren’t any records that were shielded from your attention based on what may have been at that time national secuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:41 Dec 14, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00121 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\53572.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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rity concerns that may have continued to exist even though it was

so many years ago?

Ms. MITTAL. I am quite confident that if we were aware that

something existed that we would have had access to it and that we

would have been able to obtain it. I did not personally work on the

project at that time so I can’t confirm everything we looked at. But

I am quite confident that if we were aware that a document existed, we would have obtained it.

Mr. KUCINICH. There weren’t any projects labeled top secret at

that time? I would assume that if you have a munitions and a

chemical weapons facility that was operating at that time that it

may have been top secret. Is it possible that any information that

may exist has not been seen by the GAO that might be relevant

to this investigation?

Ms. MITTAL. I will double check and get back to you on that, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. I think that would be good if you did that with

the idea that it may be a separate classification. It could have been

for just the knowledge of a few people only, and because so much

time has passed, it may still be there. The reason I raise this question is this: Have you had access to any longitudinal studies or any

epidemiological studies relative to people who are in the Spring

Valley area and who have been in the Spring Valley area since it

has been built up?

Ms. MITTAL. When we did the 2002 work, a lot of the studies

that have happened have happened after that. So we did not. We

did look at the earlier work that had been done, but not at the ones

that have been done subsequently.

Mr. KUCINICH. Were students at American University who may

have been in and around the grounds there over the period of time

that we have knowledge that this existed, were students surveyed

or canvassed to see if they may have any adverse health effects as

a result of coming into contact with some of the sites?

Ms. MITTAL. Do you mean as part of our study? No, we did not

do that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you know of any public health studies that

have been done that go beyond the testing that the University testifies to? They tested defined campus populations for arsenic poisoning.

Ms. MITTAL. I believe the ATSDR did a study where they sampled students that had been around the American University Campus at the Children’s Development Center. So there was a comprehensive study done by ATSDR.

Mr. KUCINICH. But have there been any other studies in terms

of long term studies? Because some of these chemicals are bioaccumulative and you may see effects later on in life and not see

them immediately.

Ms. MITTAL. I am not aware personally of any of those studies.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I just call it to your attention. You

have been doing much more work on this and are much more familiar with it than I am, but I just wanted to raise the attention

of the Chair and members of the committee that it might be helpful

to find out what other kinds of public health studies relate to the

population in the Spring Valley area, including the students at

American University over a period of time and people that are

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graduates of the University. Just kind of take a long period of time

and see if any particular types of incidents show up of certain

kinds of diseases or ailments.

My time has almost expired. I am grateful for the work of this

committee and for GAO’s continuing interest in this. The fact that

this was discovered by accident in 1993 should give all of us on this

committee pause about other sites that are formerly used defense

and military munitions sites. So Mr. Chairman, thank you very

much for this.

Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentleman. We will followup on the

health information as to what might be available.

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from northern Virginia,

Mr. Connolly, for 5 minutes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the Chair. I particularly want to thank

the chairman for holding these hearings that are clearly of importance to all of us in the National Capital Region, especially those

who live in the District of Columbia.

I have an opening statement, Mr. Chairman, and I would ask

unanimous consent that it be entered into the record at this point.

Mr. LYNCH. Without objection.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the Chair.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Gerald E. Connolly follows:]

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Mr. CONNOLLY. Ms. Mittal, how many such sites might there be

that we know of throughout the United States where we have either unexpended ordnance or testing grounds that could negatively

affect residential communities?

Ms. MITTAL. I would have to go back and double check on how

many affect residential communities. I do not have that information. I do know that there are 4,700 sites that are considered formerly used defense sites in the Corps’ data base.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Are you aware of anybody who has segregated

those 4,700 sites in terms of who they impact?

Ms. MITTAL. I am sure that information can be derived.

Mr. CONNOLLY. If you could get it back to the committee for the

record, that would be very helpful because we need to look at the

scope of the problem.

If I could followup on something Congressman Clay was asking

about, when a property owned by the Federal Government, any

part of the Federal Government including the Army, if it is discovered subsequent to the transfer to a local government or to a private entity that in fact there is some kind of environmental problem, legally who has the obligation to clean that up?

Ms. MITTAL. To clean it up? If it is determined that the site was

owned by the Government, controlled by the Government, and that

the activity that caused the contamination was a result of Government activity, then it is the Federal Government that has responsibility under CERCLA to clean it up.

Mr. CONNOLLY. That is understood in whatever contractual arrangement there is in the transfer, is that correct?

Ms. MITTAL. I believe so.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I had an experience locally, here at the Lorton

Prisonsite that was transferred to Fairfax County. When we discovered certain environmental problems on the property, it was the responsibility nonetheless of the Federal Government, the transferring agent, to clean up that site. So I assume similar provisions

apply to any Federal agency that may own such land.

Ms. MITTAL. I am familiar with the CERCLA requirements but

Mr. Bailey might be——

Mr. BAILEY. Congressman, this is a much more unique situation.

Here the American University Experimental Station was leased by

the Army from American University. Private land owners around

the area then conveyed their property to property owners. And

American University, of course, conveyed property subsequently.

The problem, of course, is that there was a failure to disclose a

dangerous condition as the law requires. In D.C. law and Federal

law there is a requirement to disclose a dangerous condition. That

was never done here. That is the essence of the entire problem.

Mr. CONNOLLY. It is a very good point you are making. Mr.

Chairman, it sounds to me like this may be one of those areas that

needs to be clarified in the law. As Ms. Mittal said, though we

don’t know how many impinge on or are connected to residential

communities, if there are 4,700 sites one can imagine there could

be other similar such problems.

Did I understand you, Ms. Mittal, to respond to the gentleman’s

from Ohio query that there has not been a comprehensive health

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assessment of nearby residents and students attending American

University with respect to this?

Ms. MITTAL. No. There actually have been a couple of studies

done. One was done by ATSDR. Another one was done by Johns

Hopkins. What I think the Congressman was asking was about

long term studies. I am not aware of any long term studies.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Following the long term effects?

Ms. MITTAL. Yes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. OK, I understand. All right. Like my colleagues,

if I can, I am going to wait for other questions for the next panel.

I thank you both for being here.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentleman. There being no further Members with additional questions, since we obviously did not exhaust

all areas of inquiry, I would like to give you each an opportunity.

You will have just 3 minutes each if there are areas of your testimony that have not been touched upon adequately, if you want to

amplify a certain area that you think is very important, or if there

is an area that hasn’t been asked.

I appreciate the frank testimony by each of our witnesses on this

panel.

Ms. Mittal, I would like to allow you 3 minutes if there are some

areas of concern that you have that haven’t been touched upon yet

at this hearing.

Ms. MITTAL. I appreciate it. Thank you. I think the important

thing to remember is that these are not easy sites to clean up. We

do not have comprehensive information. The contamination occurred 75 or 90 years ago in some cases. The technological capacity

that we need to detect, identify, and then actually do the cleanup

is not always there. We need to recognize that this is a very complex and challenging process. It is not always easy for the Corps

to know everything that they possibly need to know when they

start cleaning up a site. So I just want to emphasize that.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. Bailey.

Mr. BAILEY. I would just add that the Congresswoman’s point

about the lack of estate involved in this process is something that

I urge you to cover more. The amount of resources the District of

Columbia has had to devote to independent oversight has been limited. I do sites all around the country, and this is a unique site in

the respect that other sites have great resources—scientific, analytical, and legal—to employ independent oversight and make sure

that the Corps is doing the right job. Unfortunately, that has been

lacking in this case, in my view. I would urge the committee to

question other witnesses on that particular point.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

At this point I would like to dismiss our first panel. Thank you

for your willingness to come forward and help the subcommittee

with its work. We bid you good day.

With that, I would like to call up our second panel. Good afternoon and welcome. We want to welcome our second panel and

thank you for your willingness to come forward and help the subcommittee with its work.

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It is the custom before this committee that all witnesses providing testimony shall be sworn. May I please ask you to rise and

raise your right hands?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. LYNCH. Let the record reflect that all the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. As you saw with the first panel, the

green light will indicate you have 5 minutes to summarize your

written statements which have been accepted into the record. The

yellow light indicates that you have 1 minute remaining to summarize your statement. The red light means that your time for your

statement has expired.

Let me introduce our second panel: Mr. Addison Davis assumed

his duties as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health in 2005. Mr. Davis provides executive leadership for the Army Environmental Policy Institute and the Army’s four regional environmental offices. He

serves as the executive agent for a number of critical Department

of Defense activities.

Colonel Peter Mueller assumed command of the Baltimore District on July 14, 2006. Colonel Mueller’s major command and staff

experience include assignments as the Commander of the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers, Charleston District in South Carolina.

He is a registered professional engineer in the Commonwealth of

Virginia.

William C. Early was appointed Acting Regional Administrator

for the Environmental Protection Agency in April 2009, temporarily

leaving his post as Regional Counsel. Mr. Early has received several bronze medals for his efforts in support of the regional Hazardous Waste Enforcement Program.

Mr. George S. Hawkins is the director of the Department of Environment for the District of Columbia. He launched and now

chairs the Mayor’s Green Team, which coordinates District sustainability programs across more than 40 agencies.

With that, I would now like to open it up for opening statements.

Mr. Davis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENTS OF ADDISON DAVIS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY, AND OCCUPATIONAL

HEALTH, U.S. ARMY; COLONEL PETER MUELLER, U.S. ARMY

CORPS OF ENGINEERS; WILLIAM C. EARLY, ACTING REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; AND GEORGE S. HAWKINS, DIRECTOR, D.C.

DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT

STATEMENT OF ADDISON DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am Ted Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army

for Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health. I am pleased to

have the opportunity to testify today on the Army’s activities at

Spring Valley in Washington, DC. As one of my other duties, I

serve as the Department’s of Defense executive agent for the formerly used defense site program under which Spring Valley is

being addressed.

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My testimony will briefly discuss the FUDS program and the

issues you identified in your recent letter. I would like to say up

front that the Army will not leave Spring Valley until the work is

done. Based on investigation results and ongoing efforts, the Army

anticipates completion of the majority of the field work at Spring

Valley at the end of calendar year 2010. Although this means that

there will be fewer visible signs of Army activities like trucks and

trailers onsite, the Army remains committed to its efforts to protect

human health and the environment at Spring Valley.

We understand the concerns of the Spring Valley community and

assure you and the public that the Army will continue to work with

our partners, the D.C. Department of the Environment, the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the community, to ensure that the work is completed in accordance with prescribed regulatory standards and with the intent to ensure the health and

human safety of the entire community. We will continue to work

hard to keep our activities related to this site as open and transparent as possible.

I would also like to acknowledge the role that Congress has

played in availing the funds necessary to discharge our responsibilities at Spring Valley and at other FUDS sites around the country.

Funding for the FUDS program has stayed relatively level for the

last several years with approximately $11 million a year at the

Spring Valley site. However, the program has received annual plus

ups from Congress that have allowed us to accelerate work at high

priority sites including Spring Valley, which received $4 million

above the original allocation for fiscal year 2009. So essentially for

2009, we had $15 million of funding.

The FUDS program is part of the overall Defense Environmental

Restoration Program [DERP], established by the Congress in 1986.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers executes the program under my

supervision as DOD’s executive agent for the FUDS program. This

program is responsible for more than 9,000 sites transferred from

DOD control prior to 1986.

Given available resources, the Army uses a risk based

prioritization approach based onsite specific conditions. The Army

first addresses those sites with the highest relative priority before

addressing sites of a lower priority. At this point in time, the top

priority within the FUDS program is the Spring Valley site.

The Army complies with the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act [CERCLA], for site characterization and remedy implementation at FUDS. We actively work

with regulators who set and enforce the appropriate standards necessary to ascertain the cleanup is protective of human health and

the environment. Further, the Army engages the community to ensure its concerns are understood and that their concerns are considered as well in the process.

The Spring Valley FUDS encompasses the former American University Experimental Station where during World War I the Army

tested chemical agents. It presents, as was mentioned already before, the challenge of investigating and remediating legacy chemical weapons materials in a densely populated metropolitan area.

Emphasizing safety, accountability, and transparency, the Army

invited the D.C. Department of Health, later the D.C. Department

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of the Environment, as well as the EPA to enter a working partnership with the Army for the Spring Valley cleanup. I firmly believe,

Mr. Chairman, that our partnership at Spring Valley to date is a

strong factor in the success of our efforts at this FUDS project.

As previously stated, the Army is nearing a key milestone at

Spring Valley. Based on the Army’s investigative efforts and site

data collected using the best technology and expertise available,

the Army developed a cleanup plan that was carefully reviewed

and agreed upon by those partners. The plan projects that the majority of field work will in fact be completed by the end of 2010.

We will then begin an extensive data review and report writing

phase which may last up to several years. Further, the Army is

committed to working collaboratively with the community to respond to discoveries of contamination caused by past military activities that may pose a threat to human health or the environment.

Last year the Army planed to use the explosive destruction system to neutralize chemical munitions and conventional munitions

that contain a non-chemical agent. We will probably be able to go

into more detail on that process during our discussions.

In closing, the bottom line from the Army’s perspective and that

of DOD is doing the right thing with regard to the Spring Valley

site. That has always been our intent and will continue to be so

in the future. The Army has acted responsibly at this complex site.

It continues to coordinate actions with its partners and strives to

keep the community informed on project progress.

I welcome the opportunity to be with you all today for this important hearing. We are committed, and look forward to working with

members of this committee as we continue the cleanup efforts at

Spring Valley. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Davis follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, sir. Colonel Mueller, you are recognized

for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF PETER MUELLER

Colonel MUELLER. Good afternoon, Chairman Lynch and members of the subcommittee. I thank you for inviting me to address

you today on the Spring Valley formerly used defense site located

in Washington, DC. I am Colonel Pete Mueller, Commander and

District Engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore

District. We serve as the Army’s executive agent for Spring Valley

cleanup activities, and we are responsible for managing and overseeing the successful remediation of this site.

Spring Valley, as we have heard, consists of 661 acres in northwest Washington that was used by the Army from 1917 to 1920 to

conduct chemical warfare research. It is currently occupied by approximately 1,300 residential homes, 22 embassy properties, American University, schools, churches, and a small number of businesses.

The Corps began investigating Spring Valley in 1993 to address

hazards left over from past Department of Defense activities. During this time we recovered chemical warfare material, munitions,

and explosives of concern.

The technical and stakeholder involvement challenges inherent

in a chemical warfare material, munitions, and explosives of concern investigation within a residential community require active

planning and communication between the Corps, the Environmental Protection Agency, the D.C. Departments of Health and of

the Environment, and the community. As the decisionmaking agency responsible for accomplishing this mission, our end goal is to

achieve agreement between our Spring Valley partners and the

community to identify, investigate, and safely remove or remediate

threats to human and environmental health and safety resulting

from DOD activities.

Today I will summarize the key aspects of achieving the successful mission, and describe our ongoing and future tasks at the site.

A crucial element to successfully clean up any FUDS site is

learning and understanding its history. Spring Valley is the most

comprehensively researched site in the history of the FUDS program. Our historical research includes interviews with those most

familiar with its past DOD activities and a 1993 review of the

American University Experimental Station records, which yielded

approximately 14,000 line entries of data.

Another critical component of the project includes the array of

tools and methods that the partnership uses to effectively communicate with the public. First, our project team follows the congressionally mandated process that requires public input from key partners, stakeholders, and community members at each critical decision point. Second, we have implemented additional methods that

include among others establishing a Restoration Advisory Board,

tours and regular face to face meetings with individual community

members, mailings, as well as an active Web site.

As part of our ongoing cleanup activities, we continue to test for

and remove arsenic contaminated soil from the property sites.

Today, we have cleaned a total of 106 properties and removed more

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than 24,000 tons of contaminated soil. Over 98 percent of the approximately 15,000 property owners have agreed to the testing and

removal program. We expect to finish the residential soil removal

effort by the end of this calendar year.

We also are managing a very active program to search for and

recover military munitions. In March 2009, we completed a high

probability portion of the investigation and removal of Pit 3 in the

Glenbrook Road area, an area known to contain buried chemical

munitions. This removal is an important accomplishment. As a result of the investigation of Pit 3, we have recovered munitions that

contain chemical agents. We plan to safely treat and neutralize the

chemical munitions at the Spring Valley Federal property later in

2009 using a mobile treatment system. That same technology was

used at Spring Valley in 2003 to safely destroy 15 chemical munitions. Our planned work at this property should conclude later this

summer.

We continue to collaborate on and actively investigate groundwater in two areas where perchlorate levels exceeded guidelines.

We have completed two phases of the investigation and currently

are on our third. The results so far indicate that the Dalecarlia

Reservoir is not at risk from the perchlorate in the groundwater.

In phase 3 we will install an additional 8 groundwater sampling

wells to join the 43 wells already in the network.

While we do have planned milestones for completion of these elements of field work, I want to assure the subcommittee that there

is nothing that prevents us from discussing with the partnership

the need for additional work. If the partnership believes that more

needs to be done, then more work will occur. With that said, we

are planning on completing most of the remaining field work by the

end of calendar year 2010.

Though our field work may come to a close, we will continue to

advance in the congressionally mandated process by completing a

remedial investigation and feasibility study which is collected from

our field work and involves consultation with stakeholders and the

public. We will allow the facts and the data to guide future work.

I assure the committee that we will remain committed to our

purpose for as long as it takes to get the job done. I am highly confident in our ability to achieve our mission for the Army and, most

importantly, the community of Spring Valley.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak. I am prepared to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Colonel Mueller follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, sir. Mr. Early, you are now recognized

for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM C. EARLY

Mr. EARLY. Chairman Lynch, Representative Norton, and members of the committee, I am Bill Early. I am the Acting Regional

Administrator for EPA Region 3 in Philadelphia, which includes

the District of Columbia. With me today is Steven Hirsch, the Senior Remedial Project Manager assigned to the Spring Valley site

cleanup. I am here to provide the committee with EPA’s perspective on the ongoing efforts to clean up the formerly used defense

site in the Spring Valley neighborhood in the District and to address current issues which are of concern to the committee and the

public.

EPA has been providing technical support to the U.S. Army for

its work at the Spring Valley site since the initial discovery of munitions in 1993. Because the area is categorized as a FUDS, the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been and continues to be the

Federal agency with responsibility for the cleanup.

The EPA, the Corps, and the District of Columbia have developed

a partnership management team to work together on the Spring

Valley cleanup. This partnership continues to function effectively

with each partner’s organization maintaining its respective role

and mission in the cleanup of the site.

EPA’s participation in the Spring Valley site has been and con- tinues to be significant. EPA has expended over $2.6 million conducting technical support activities at the site. EPA has brought

expertise and capabilities which the other partners either do not

possess or were not able to employ in a timely manner.

EPA has extensive experience in cleaning up contaminated soils

in residential areas at numerous sites across the country. Contaminants of concern at these sites include a variety of hazardous substances including arsenic. The technical issues presented by Spring

Valley soil contamination may be challenging but they are not

unique.

The investigation and cleanup work at this site has progressed

steadily over the years, addressing three primary areas of concern:

arsenic contamination in soils, buried munitions and disposal pits,

and potential groundwater contamination. However, there are

many other tasks yet to be completed.

The partners have developed their priorities with community and

stakeholder input with the goals of investigating contamination

and eliminating unacceptable risks to human health and the environment in Spring Valley. All significant cleanup areas requiring

investigation and cleanup have a project management schedule.

The partners’ Spring Valley cleanup schedule is a living document

which has been amended as necessary over the years based

uponsite conditions and discovery of new information.

Associated with contaminated soil removal is EPA’s issuance of

letters to residents. These letters explain to home owners that all

necessary contaminated soil removal actions have been completed

on their properties. The letters are important to home owners, particularly when real estate transactions occur. The partners have

agreed to give priority to ensuring that each home owner affected

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will receive a letter as soon as possible after the work on their

property is completed.

Currently, the Corps is conducting geophysical surveys of a large

number of properties to investigate the possibility of buried munitions and other remnants of the Army’s activities during World

War I. The Corps, EPA, and the District have agreed upon a method to determine which properties will be geophysically investigated.

Unlike the arsenic sampling program, geophysics is not planned for

every property at this site. The partners anticipate that the residential geophysical and followup investigations will be completed

in 2010.

The groundwater investigation is continuing. This year the Corps

will be installing additional shallow wells to better understand the

nature and extent of perchlorate and other chemicals in the

groundwater. In addition, the Corps is planning to install deep

monitoring wells, something not previously done at the Spring Valley site.

Last, I want to address the issue of community involvement in

the Spring Valley cleanup. As you have heard, the partners hold

a large number of regularly scheduled meetings. The Corps, EPA,

and the District are always available to talk or meet with residents

on an individual basis.

Besides being investigated and remediated in accordance with

the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency

Plan, there are specific processes the Corps will follow in developing documentation that presents all of the previous cleanup activities and assessments in a single document. As required by the

NCP, the Corps intends to prepare a remedial investigation report.

This document will summarize all sampling and cleanup actions

taken at the site and will include a baseline human health and environmental risk assessment.

The risk assessment is a key document in determining if all necessary cleanup actions have been conducted or what additional

cleanup actions need to be completed to address unacceptable risks.

The document and the proposed remedial action plan will be available for public comment and will be the subject of one or two public

meetings.

In closing, EPA believes that the Spring Valley cleanup is progressing in a positive manner. Community and stakeholder concerns are heard and are being addressed.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak before the

committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Early follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Early. Mr. Hawkins, you are now

recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE S. HAWKINS

Mr. HAWKINS. Good afternoon, Chairman Lynch; Congressman

Chaffetz; my Congressman, Congressman Norton; and members of

the committee. My name is George Hawkins. I am the director of

the District Department of the Environment. Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony at this oversight hearing on the Environmental Restoration Program at the Spring Valley formerly

used defense site. I am joined by Alex Bako, who is the division director for our Toxic Substances Division, as well as Jim Sweeney,

who is the branch chief of our Site Remediation Branch.

My objectives this afternoon are to describe from our perspective

the manner in which the District Department of the Environment

works in association with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and

the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to facilitate the ongoing

planning and execution of work activities at Spring Valley. Furthermore, I would like to emphasize some of the recent and ongoing

efforts that DDOE, the District Department of the Environment,

has established to foster and encourage communication with District residents.

As you may know, the District of Columbia works to resolve this

matter under a 1994 agreement with the Department of Defense.

This agreement provides reimbursement to the District for providing technical review and guidance at installation restoration

projects at both active military facilities and formerly used defense

sites within the District. Our goal under this review process is to

ensure that restoration work is performed in compliance with District of Columbia environmental laws and regulations and that

work is protective of the environment and human health. Currently, our attention is mainly focused on three sites: the Washington Navy Yard, which is the only Superfund site in the District;

Bolling Air Force Base; and, of course, Spring Valley.

The District’s environmental program has been involved with the

Spring Valley project since June 1995 when two environmental

specialists in our agency were hired after a record decision was

issued stating that no further action was needed at the site. It was

the work of these two District staff members that ultimately resulted in the Army Corps returning to Spring Valley and that has

brought us to where we are today.

Since the Corps’ return, we have been involved in a partnering

process with them and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

to ensure that the highest quality of work is done to investigate

and remediate the contaminants left behind by the Army after

World War I testing in Spring Valley. The partners meet on a

monthly basis and no work is initiated, no work is initiated, unless

or until all three partners agree on how to proceed. If either the

District, the EPA, or both disagrees with the proposed plan or procedure, the action will not and does not occur. Currently, there are

two major issues on which our attention is focused: the ongoing

groundwater study and the planned onsite destruction of chemical

weapons.

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We have been in discussions for some time concerning plans for

the next phase of groundwater investigation. The District has absolutely been at the table and has had strong views about how this

should be conducted. Recently, we have come to an agreement on

how this work will in fact be accomplished. We expect that a new

round of groundwater sampling will occur later this summer or in

the early fall. The District is interested in the groundwater results

for two principal reasons: The first is the obvious need to determine if contamination, particularly perchlorate, is potentially affecting the Dalecarlia Reservoir, which supplies drinking water to

the entire District of Columbia. Even though sampling so far has

indicated that the reservoir has not been affected, we have been

concerned that perchlorate contamination may reach the deep aquifer. For that reason, we have insisted that the Corps conduct deep

well sampling, as has been noted, for the first time at this site.

The second reason to continue groundwater sampling is hopefully

to assist in locating the source of the perchlorate that has been detected in the groundwater at higher levels near the American University campus. Locating the source of the perchlorate might help

us in locating one or more yet to be discovered burial pits that have

been mentioned in some of the historical archives.

In response to the proposed onsite destruction of chemical weapons, DDOE has been briefed on the Corps’ of Engineers conceptual

plan for this activity. Clearly, the use of explosives for onsite destruction of munitions requires the cooperation of several District

agencies besides the Department of the Environment. The District’s

Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Fire Department, and the Health

Department have all been briefed by the Corps of Engineers and

all agencies are currently reviewing the plans for this event. District government sign off on this plan will occur after reviews have

been completed by all agencies. If any agency has concerns on the

plan, then approval will not occur until all uncertainties or questions have been satisfactorily addressed.

While these are two major issues right now, there are several

other efforts at Spring Valley which appear to be near completion.

We believe it is premature to suggest that work is complete. What

will be completed in 2010 is planned field work. Our view is that

there is likely to be more work suggested in the future as the result of sampling that has not yet been conducted. It is planned field

work that will be completed, not any additional field work that is

indicated as necessary either by the next round of groundwater

sampling or additional site reviews done near the Dalecarlia Reservoir.

We have thought it is prudent, however, to look at what ought

to be the criteria to close the site. The issue of closure criteria was

asked once before in 1995. As I mentioned, it was D.C.’s environmental program that determined additional work was necessary

and the Corps returned.

Since then, tremendous work has been done. Burial pits and

chemical weapons have been found. Tens of thousands of samples

have been analyzed. Scores of properties have been remediated. Additional scores of properties have been geophysically surveyed.

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Many of these properties have been dug up in the hope of finding

munitions.

Still, work needs to be done. This is a unique site. There are

tough questions and it is complicated. We asked the right and

tough questions in 1995 and we will continue to ask those questions before there is any decision to walk away.

The Department of the Environment pledges to continue to act

aggressively as the environmental advocate for the citizens of

Spring Valley. We devoted many resources to the cleanup of the

site. We have planned activities bringing specialized groundwater

and hazardous waste personnel and have just hired a toxicologist

who will bring new resources to bear on decisions for this site.

I realize I have used my time. We have continued to also work

more with the citizens. We are planning additional meetings one on

one with the neighborhood Commissioners near the site. We have

devoted a new part of our Web site to this site specifically to make

sure all information that is needed for the site is available to the

citizens.

I am here to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hawkins follows:]

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Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Let me begin by saying

that I think the community has sounded some measure of alarm

over the idea that planned field work is concluding. I think the reaction is actually born in the experience they have had already.

There was a clean bill of health given to the site and then they

found more contamination, significant contamination. A thorough

job hadn’t been done in the original analysis so there is a lack of

trust. But it is probably well deserved.

Let me ask, from a technological standpoint, are we using every

state-of-the-art technology to investigate the site that might be

available? Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. I would say yes we are. In fact, some of the technology that was discussed earlier was tried and used unsuccessfully based on the interference in the local area. The ground penetrating radar that was discussed was in fact tried at the site.

Again, that is one of the challenges we have, Mr. Chairman.

When you go from one site to another, you try to adapt the technologies that are available, to include emerging technologies, that

might be used on that site based on the source and types of contamination that we are looking for. But we don’t have blinders on.

We are continuing to look for new technologies that we can bring

to bear.

I think that in our groundwater monitoring plan that we are

going to maybe talk about a little bit later, we are bringing in some

things there that will enhance our ability to better determine if

there is any groundwater contamination.

The only other thing I would tell you is that we have a National

Defense Center for Energy and the Environment, which really does

a lot of research and development projects for the DOD. Projects

associated with cleanup at many of our sites, both our active sites

and our formerly used defense sites, are part of that process. So we

are continuing to look at new technologies.

We are also partnering with the private sector. I think many of

you may know that in many cases the expertise that we bring to

these sites is done by private contractors. So we seek to get the

best of those contractors and the best technology available to bring

to these sites.

Mr. LYNCH. Colonel, do you feel comfortable with that assessment in terms of all the technology that is available being used?

Colonel MUELLER. Yes sir, I do. In fact, I think it also goes back

to the partnership and the discussions that we can have where

each of our agencies will bring different ideas and different experiences to help seek the best alternatives.

We will tend to use industry standards. One thing that we have

hesitated to do is to use something that is going through research

and development because we want to use proven techniques.

One example where the community involvement I think drove us

to another technology was with the arsenic removal. The community indicated they wanted an alternative to digging up yards. So

we went back to our engineering and research laboratory in Mississippi where they have been using phyllo remediation. They had

had proven tests where phyllo remediation using plants could actually extract arsenic from the soil. This was one application that

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was fairly modern that we used. And we have actually used that

to clean up 19 properties.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. I believe in reading the testimony last night

that as recently as a year ago we have discovered munitions. That

is fairly recent, and we have been on this site for a while. It just

seems to me premature to say, OK, we are done with our planned

field work and we are going to move on. I just think that there is

a need to provide further activity here. I know you have a lot of

points of interest, and you have a lot of monitoring wells. I am just

concerned whether or not this decision to conclude field work is

premature given the recent findings.

So I did like the testimony offered by Ms. Mittal from GAO earlier in this hearing about a very aggressive and robust monitoring

process that would continue on the site at least in the near future.

Let me ask you, is that something that you envision?

I also want to know about destroying some of these munitions

onsite. That must cause a considerable amount of anxiety in the

neighborhood that you are operating in. Is there not a better technology? I know transporting chemical weapons is a dicey proposition in any circumstances. You have a heavily populated neighborhood here. Is there not a better way to do this than destroying

them onsite, notifying the neighborhood, and scaring the heck out

of them? There has to be a better way than this, guys.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. If I could maybe address the EDS, the explosive detonation system, that we are going to use for the destruction

first? This is a technology that has been proven. We have used it

throughout the country. We have had over 1,500 documented uses

of this system to destroy chemical munitions at different sites

throughout the country. We currently have in storage on Federal

property adjacent to Sibley Hospital the munitions that would be

destroyed during this destruction process.

Mr. LYNCH. Are they conventional or are they chemical weapons.

Mr. DAVIS. They are a combination of both, sir. In the 2003 destruction, a similar system was brought in and set up using all the

safety control mechanisms that are available. We will be doing

something similar. We have some enhanced monitoring devices now

that are newer than the ones we used back in 2003. But the site

will be set up.

Again, and this was mentioned by my colleagues here at the witness table, a tremendous amount of coordination has already gone

into and will continue to go into planning for and conducting this

process using all of the existing technologies that are available and

then some. I think also the safety procedures will be in place as

well as working with the local first responders within the District

to be onsite and to provide their assistance.

We again have done this at locations throughout the country. We

currently do not make a habit of transporting chemical munitions

from one State or from one jurisdiction to another for destruction.

That is one of the reasons why this exportable system was developed in the first place. We could bring it into a site, safely set it

up, destroy the munitions on site, and then minimize the risk associated with that particular activity.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. My time has expired. I just might offer the possibility that the committee may want to go out and visit the site

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and look at that operation because I am not entirely convinced.

OK?

Mr. DAVIS. Sir, normally when we do these around the country

we have a Leaders’ Day set up once the site is completely set up.

We will coordinate with the committee so that they can come out.

We will walk them through the system and explain all the procedures and protocols that we will have in place before we actually

begin the destruction process.

Mr. LYNCH. All right. I have abused my time. Thank you, Mr.

Secretary.

I am going to yield 5 minutes to our ranking member, Mr.

Chaffetz.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Early, if I can

start with you, are the residents and those who work in Spring

Valley safe?

Mr. EARLY. That is something I think we are continuing to

address——

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you can’t say yes?

Mr. EARLY. Well, I think we are moving to address the concerns

that the citizens have. There were a number of things that had

been pointed out at that particular site that we have been, as a result of the partnership here, addressing. There are a number of

concerns, soil contamination, groundwater contamination, and explosives, that I think we have been looking at.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So the answer is not yes. Is that correct?

Mr. EARLY. Well, I think we are moving to make them safe. I

think we, as a result of the partnership that we have developed

here at this site, which I think is unique to this type of situation,

are moving to diligently address all of the hazards that are present

at this site and to address them in a responsible manner.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Colonel Mueller, are the residents and people who

work there safe? Yes or no.

Colonel MUELLER. Sir, they are getting safer every day. We

would not be there if the site was totally safe. Obviously, we are

looking to make sure that we find everything that we possibly can

that is left over from that time. I am comfortable that we have all

the controls and measures in place to make that community as safe

as it can be until we complete the study.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Would you live there right now?

Colonel MUELLER. If I had a paycheck that would allow me to

live there, yes sir, I would.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Let me ask Mr. Hawkins here, have the residents

been exposed to contaminants that would increase the risk of disease or dysfunction?

Mr. HAWKINS. It is possible that they have been exposed to contaminants that could cause a health problem. As you have heard,

there have been a series of short term health studies in the past.

In the past D.C. Council session, $250,000 has been allotted to our

agency in fiscal year 2010 to do a more in depth health study that

had been suggested by Johns Hopkins. That is not enough to do the

full study that had been envisioned by the previous Johns Hopkins

effort. We think it is well worth it and are searching to determine

whether other funding sources are available.

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The question of whether anyone has been harmed, my guess

would be is that there are health consequences to the contaminants

that have been at the site as there are in many sites around the

country. I believe we are taking the steps necessary to eliminate

those threats.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Secretary Davis, this has taken certainly considerably longer than anybody wished. What went wrong?

Why is this taking so long?

Mr. DAVIS. I would say that I don’t think anyone has done anything wrong when you look at the program that is in place right

now. I share your concerns, just like everyone else, about the time

that it is taking. But as you go around the country, as I get the

opportunity to do, and look at a variety of sites, in many cases you

see the same thing.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That is not very reassuring. Is there a flaw in the

procedure? On the one hand you admire a group and an agency to

take an estimate. The risk is always that you aren’t going to meet

that estimate. But now, reflecting back, what went wrong? Why is

it taking so long? Is it a procedural failure? If this is happening

above and beyond Spring Valley, why is this a flaw that continues

to happen all across the country?

Mr. DAVIS. Again, I don’t see it as a flaw. But what I would tell

you is that a lot of these sites that we are dealing with like Spring

Valley go back 60, 70, or 80 years. You are dealing with incomplete

information. For instance, we have misperceptions today. We watch

shows like NCIS or some of these other shows where they solve

three different crimes in the span of 45 minutes with perfect information. In many cases, we are dealing with imperfections here. We

are dealing with information that no longer exists or records that

were not kept to begin with.

So as we go back through our archival efforts to try to piece together everything that happened, that forms the basis for the initiation of efforts at these sites. I can assure you that it is a comprehensive effort that includes records; it includes, if they are still

alive, actual interviews with people who were on these sites; overhead photography; and a whole host of things that have taken

place and provided documentation. From that, we develop the initial estimate on what work needs to be done based on the nature

and type of contamination at that site. Then we proceed with the

cleanup effort.

Once you start digging in the dirt, you find different things. All

these munitions that have been found at different locations

throughout the country, we will go out and do geophysical mapping

to try to identify various anomalies that might be there. When you

go out and you actually start digging things up, you may not dig

up what you thought was there. So it may take a little bit longer

than you had originally anticipated.

So it is a deliberate process. In many cases, as we are going

through that process, we are continuing the archival research, we

are continuing to engage people that might have been there, adding

new information into the situation to develop it as precisely as we

can to guide the effort forward.

The other consideration, if I might add, sir, is that we also continue our concern for those people that are working at the site and

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those people that are in the local community. In some cases, we

just can’t go out and start our work. We have to get a right of entry

to go into that property. In some cases, as we have seen here at

Spring Valley, for whatever reason the residents or the owners of

some of those properties are reluctant to provide us a right of entry

so we can go in there and do the investigative work and the follow

on cleanup if needed.

So there are a lot of different variations here that impact the

timetable and our ability to get the work done.

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the extra time.

Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes

the gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms. Eleanor Holmes

Norton, for 5 minutes.

Ms. NORTON. I recognize the position, particularly that the Corps

is put in, in dealing with their own munitions very deeply buried.

So the only thing we can judge, it seems to me, is what standards

or criteria are being used to determine when to leave and when the

job is done.

Let us take the 2-year work plan. Who has seen the 2-year work

plan, since you have said that you believe the job will be done in

2 years? Where is the 2-year work plan?

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, the work plan is one that is built by

the partners. The work plan is developed by the partners. I would

have to step back a minute to describe exactly where we are. I will

try to do that quickly.

The Area of Interest Taskforce that involved all the partners

looked at all the issues, everything that we had characterized. That

taskforce came up with 28 areas of interest. To date, we have analyzed 14 of those. There are 14 areas of interest still to be evaluated. All the partners, as we go through the findings and the results of what has been investigated, then take a final look at what

else may need to be done. So really the area of interest evaluation

for the overall site is what has driven that.

But there is a different process for the arsenic. Then there are

also geophysical surveys of properties that are a part of that work

plan.

Ms. NORTON. Are you using the work plan now? Is that what you

are saying? I am trying to determine what it is that makes you

know that in 2 years you will be through. What is the exit plan

that you are using?

Colonel MUELLER. OK. Yes, ma’am. Based on where we are

today, we have analyzed firstly the historical studies and then we

have analyzed everything we can’t identify, items of work that need

to be done. Once we complete this work there will be a remedial

investigation feasibility study that is published. We will analyze all

the work that has happened to date. That gets vetted with each of

the agencies including D.C., the EPA, and the community. It will

include a 30 day review by the public. That document will characterize all the work that has been done.

Ms. NORTON. When will the material be available to the public?

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, that would not be complete until we

complete the physical work onsite. So as we mentioned, that current work plan identifies actions that we are taking by people on

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the ground, contractors and workers cleaning and investigating the

site. The feasibility study and the final remedial investigation is a

document that will characterize the whole site and will then also

go out for public review and agency review. That will determine,

again, if there is additional work or if we have completed.

Mr. DAVIS. Ma’am, if I could add one quick comment on that?

The work that is being done now has in fact been work that was

vetted with the partners and developed in consultation with the

regulatory agencies to drive the way forward. It has been briefed

to the community via the Restoration Advisory Board meetings

that take place on a monthly basis. So it is more of a work in

progress now where we have goals and objectives that have been

established.

Ms. NORTON. It is a work in progress that is public?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. If the community or the District wanted to know

what weapons you have discovered onsite, would you give them a

list of such weapons? In fact, why hasn’t a list of these weapons

been given to the community?

They are old. There has been some sense of a national security

concern. Indeed, those words have been used. It is very difficult to

know how there could be national security concerns about World

War I munitions.

Mr. DAVIS. I think it goes back to the fact, ma’am, that there are

chemical agent related activities that we are dealing with here.

These are procedures that were set in place back prior to the 2003

destruction period. We had required individuals who were part of

the partnership and other stakeholders in the community, to include the Restoration Advisory Board, to sign non-disclosure statements so that there was an opportunity to provide that information

to selected members within the community and within the agencies

involved in the cleanup. We would be more than happy to provide

the community with a list.

Ms. NORTON. I don’t understand the national security concerns

at all about World War I weapons. I don’t understand that this is

anything but a way to keep the information from the public. We

are not dealing with weapons that are in use today. Maybe the

Army would be embarrassed that these weapons were ever used.

But I don’t understand national security concerns. What is the national security concern about a World War I munition that certainly isn’t anywhere used today? It certainly has not been used for

decades.

You are dealing with the most advanced Army and the most advanced scientific country in the world where these would be, if anything, antiques. So why not let us know what the antiques are, Mr.

Davis?

Mr. DAVIS. Ma’am, if I could do two things? One, let me provide

the members of the committee with that list. And two, let me take

that back with us and review it internally and get you an answer

as quickly as we can.

Ms. NORTON. I very much appreciate it. I understand the District

even signs off on didactic materials; that is signing off on nothing.

The notion of not even providing between agencies the names of

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what the materials are and what the weapons are this long after

the fact, we are almost a century later.

Mr. DAVIS. I understand your point completely. In the spirit of

transparency, let me take that one on personally to go back and see

if we can work that.

Ms. NORTON. I very much appreciate that.

You have said, Mr. Mueller, you just testified that the work plan

is available. But the community tells us that they have not been

able to get to see the work plan. See, this is why there is continuing distrust in the community. If there is a work plan, if we are

now supposed to be in an era of transparency, why not share it?

In fact, put it online. What is the secret here?

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, there is no secret. The work plans that

are analyzed by the partners take place at the partnering meetings

on a monthly basis. That is reviewed.

Ms. NORTON. With only some people being able to see them in

the community and others not?

Colonel MUELLER. Members of the community through the Restoration Advisory Board are the members that are able to attend

those.

Ms. NORTON. No, you are in a community where this information

was withheld for decades. You are now about to leave. As you

leave, surely we could get the greatest transparency possible so

that the community would finally have confidence in the work that

the Corps has done.

Now, I don’t understand. I would like you to tell me why only

some members of the community can see the work plan. What is

secret about the work plan so that you have to have a security

clearance to see it?

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, I will verify that. I have no knowledge

of anybody that is required to have a security clearance to enter

discussion.

Ms. NORTON. Have you seen it, Mr. Hawkins?

Mr. HAWKINS. There is more than one document that you are

talking about. There are work plans of the actual physical work,

what sites are being looked at, where monitoring is being done.

That, as far as I know, is accessible.

There is information about the munitions that have been found

and how it would be remediated that, since I do not have a security

clearance and I refuse to sign a non-disclosure that says I could not

report information to the Mayor, I don’t see. However, the Metropolitan Police Department and the Fire Department do see that.

Ms. NORTON. That is what I want to know. Maybe we are dealing

with truly dangerous chemicals here. Because this is a city official

and he can’t even disclose it to his principal. And no one can see

it but people you designate.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, ma’am. Like I said, we will take that on and go

back and see if we can’t work through it.

Mr. HAWKINS. Congresswoman, I also wanted to make a comment on the District’s view of this concept that in 2010 we will be

walking away or anyone will be walking away from this site. That

is certainly not the District’s intention. My experience is, and I

have to say, Mr. Chair, that I was an EPA Superfund lawyer in

Boston, in New England, when the license site professional proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:41 Dec 14, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00167 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\53572.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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gram was introduced so I have done these sites as an enforcement

lawyer, that they are often iterative. Our view as to what will be

completed in 2010 is currently planned work based on the data

that is currently in hand.

We know that as of today another round of groundwater sampling, including deep groundwater that has not been done before,

is about to commence. There is an entire area next to the reservoir

that is going to be geophysically surveyed as well as an intrusive

review done if needed. That data hasn’t been collected yet. That

may generate an additional round of work that is not currently

contemplated.

Our view is that work generated by monitoring that is currently

planned does not need to wait if it is so indicated until a full RIFS

is done. That is a very standard process to take all the information

that has been collected, put it into one document, and prepare the

investigation and the study of what is necessary. That is a standard Superfund step. That is unusual in this case because it is being

done much nearer to the end of the process.

Ms. NORTON. But all we want to see is what we can see now. I

am not asking to see what you haven’t completed yet. I understand

what you are saying.

Mr. HAWKINS. Our view is that there is nothing completed in

2010 except for existing projects that are planned.

Ms. NORTON. There is a work plan which some people have seen

and some people have not. That has been the testimony here, Mr.

Hawkins. That has been the testimony that some members of this

Board have seen it and some members have not.

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, if I may? Every active work plan is

available at the repository at the Palisades Library in the community. So the work plans are all available to the public. There is no

requirement for a security clearance to be able to see those work

plans.

Mr. LYNCH. With all due respect, I couldn’t find that library with

a map.

Let me just formalize what has just happened here. First, we

need to have the subcommittee informed, so we need to have any

reports. Right now I don’t believe there is requirement that you notify Congress, so I am going to make that request formally on the

record. Second, you will receive that request in writing. Third, we

are going to file a request to declassify the information that might

be in your repository with respect to the history of this site and

what weapons, chemical or otherwise, might be stored on the site.

That way, it will actually save you, Mr. Secretary, from making

some decision that might not be in line with your superiors. Maybe

we will just do it that way.

You could short circuit that process greatly for us if you voluntarily offered information that would address Ms. Eleanor Holmes

Norton’s request. We would welcome that. But we want to be notified fully and promptly of any activity on the site and any information that might be available.

I share Ms. Holmes Norton’s concerns that we are dealing with

World War I armaments. So the declassification should be a fairly

simple matter with the passage of time. Although I do know that

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in some countries they still store mustard gas as an active munition. But anyway, we want that information.

I would like at this point to recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay, for 5 minutes.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start with Secretary Davis. Mr. Davis, we have a site in Missouri called the

SLAAP site, which stands for the Saint Louis Army Ammunition

Plant. Could you help me with the followup testing on groundwater? Let me know if it has been done with the state-of-the-art

isotopic analysis that will be used in Spring Valley. Will we or do

we already have a remedial investigation report that summarizes

all samplings and all cleanup actions taken, and that includes a

baseline human health and environmental risk assessment? Would

you be able to provide that to this committee for me?

Mr. DAVIS. Sir, what I will do is go back and do research on that

particular location and provide the information that we have available to you as expeditiously as we can. If we need to, we can come

over and brief you and your staff.

Mr. CLAY. I would appreciate that.

Reading the GAO’s study about the primary threats at the site,

there were buried munitions, elevated arsenic, and the laboratory

waste. Perchlorate was also found onsite. Normally, what should

happen? How should we deal with this for a community? What do

we do to take them out of danger, to get that exposure away from

them? What should happen?

Mr. DAVIS. Well, what we have done here is to go through first

a detailed archival research effort to try to gain as much information as we could about the site.

To get to the perchlorate issue that you brought up at the end,

we have a series of monitoring wells that are in place right now.

We are going to begin another monitoring period this summer to

draw samples from those wells. We are going to put in an additional series of wells to give us a better indication of how we can

characterize the perchlorate.

The big issue of concern is whether or not it is going to impact

the drinking water supply for the District at the Dalecarlia Reservoir. Our geophysical assessment right now based on the hydrology of the site indicates that any perchlorate is going to not go into

the Dalecarlia Reservoir but it may go into the Potomac. So we believe that by enhancing the number of wells and by reinitiating our

sampling program, we will be able to determine better than we

know right now what the potential source of that perchlorate might

be and where it may be moving underneath the surface.

With regard to the arsenic remediation, that has been a major

effort on our part to go out and actually do soil sampling at a multitude of properties on the site. Where we have found levels that

exceed the EPA standard, we have gone in and removed that arsenic from those sites. In many cases, it means disturbing existing

landscaping, which we then go back and work with the land owners

to seek restoration.

As far as the munitions, in many cases we go through a variety

of techniques, digital geomapping systems, that we have available

that will help us go in and determine where specific anomalies

might be that will require excavation from the soil. In other cases,

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we will look at other indicators from earlier photographs of the site

where we may have depressions or scars in the ground that may

give us an indication that there was a burial there of some of these

munitions or other munitions related to constituents. Again, this is

part of the ongoing effort that we have right now, sir.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that. Let me go to Colonel Mueller real

quickly. It was mentioned earlier that these cleanup projects are in

a pinch as far as budgeting concerns, that you don’t get enough

money to do all of the projects. Is that accurate?

Colonel MUELLER. Sir, the requirements that we have had at

Spring Valley, from the Army Corps’ of Engineers perspective we

have continued to receive adequate funding for the work plans that

we have in place.

Mr. CLAY. No, I mean around the country. I guess there is just

so much money to go around.

Mr. DAVIS. Sir, if I could interject? Colonel Mueller has the Baltimore District so he is dealing with those areas here locally. But

when you look at what we are dealing with nationwide, as was

mentioned by the GAO representative earlier, we have about 4,700

sites out there that are being looked at right now. Our annual

budget for the FUDS program in its entirety is about $250 million.

With the amount of work that is remaining to be done, the current

cost to complete is in excess of $17 billion based on our current estimates. So it is going to be a while before we get the work completed that needs to be done based on just what we know today.

Mr. CLAY. Did FUDS receive any additional funding from the

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? FUSRAP did.

Mr. DAVIS. We did not receive anything from that.

Mr. CLAY. FUSRAP got a bump but not FUDS?

Mr. DAVIS. That is correct. We received about $33 million for fiscal year 2009 from the Congress as a plus up. As I mentioned earlier, $4 million of that went directly to the Spring Valley project.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you. Thank you and I yield back.

Ms. NORTON [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Clay. I would like very

much to talk about the question of finality, criteria that I have

been trying to probe.

Mr. Hawkins, I very much appreciate your testimony about the

$50,000. Normally when there is such a situation, there is access

to a very large State agency. State budgets are larger. I know that

the District may be at some disadvantage.

What I am looking for is for all of you to work together, but for

all of you to monitor each other. Some of you are more able to monitor than others. That is what I am getting at. I appreciate that

the EPA, as noted in the testimony Mr. Early gave, has worked in

partnership with the Corps, the community, and of course our own

agency.

At the end of the day, who is the regulator? Who signs off? Who

decides that the area is clear and safe?

Mr. EARLY. Well, as I said in my initial testimony, because this

is a FUDS, the Corps is responsible and the Army is responsible

for taking the lead. EPA is a support agency here.

Ms. NORTON. This really compounds my question. I don’t mind

the Corps, the District Department of the Environment, in fact, I

think there is some good to be said for the technical support and

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I appreciate that, and EPA all being in bed together. But, you see,

when it comes to someone deciding in an independent fashion that

the work is done, I am having trouble finding an independent

agent here especially if the Corps is the lead for its own investigation.

Mr. HAWKINS. I would have two comments on that score.

Ms. NORTON. That is what Mr. Early just said. The Corps is the

lead.

Mr. HAWKINS. The Corps is the lead in the cleanup. The District’s view is that the cleanup will not be done until the District

agrees that it is done, first. Second, my experience on all cleanups

is there is no such thing as a done site.

Ms. NORTON. No, I accept that, Mr. Hawkins. That has been the

testimony here, the monitoring and the testing. I accept that. So

please forgive our layman’s sense of done. But the way we are coming to done is the community has come to us and said they are

going to be done in 2 years. They are going to be done digging.

They are going to be done doing the work they were doing on the

site. After that, you say there will be something but it is different.

I am trying to put myself in their position. I appreciate that you

have made us understand that there is no leaving, no exit in that

sense. But somebody had to decide that in 2 years what is being

done now will no longer be necessary. That is what I am trying to

understand. How did that decision get made? On what basis was

that decision made? How do we know? Why not 2 years ago? Why

not 4 years from now? How did that decision get made? How will

we know, once you go to the other phase of what you do, that you

should have left at that time? Who will tell us?

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, that is a complicated question because

of the different aspects of the project. Clearly, there is an answer

for that for the arsenic that we are removing and have removed

from 106 properties. There is an answer for the munitions and explosives of concern based on the partners agreement on the 28

areas of interest that we are investigating, and there is another answer for the geophysics that we are using to look for other anomalies on properties. So ma’am, I don’t have an easy answer for that.

Ms. NORTON. I don’t understand why that is even a problem.

Whoever is the decider can in fact get the information. I am not

asking you about the different kinds of information. My question

is very simple. It is a very common sense question that a citizen

would ask. Who has the independence to make the judgment that

the time to quit the phase you are in is over? Who is that entity,

particularly given that the Corps has left twice and had to be

called back?

Mr. Hawkins, the fact that they won’t go until you say so, it is

just the way the supremacy clause works? This is a Federal agency.

They have left before. So the District will continue to say we find

x, y, and z here. But this is a Federal agency. Therefore, I have

to find what Federal entity or independent entity is going to be responsible for making a very critical decision. After more than 15

years of work that has been very controversial, where there is still

great dissatisfaction with transparency, where people still don’t

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munity, it is fair to ask who is going to make that decision and how

independent is that entity?

Mr. DAVIS. Ma’am, could I add two points to that question? First

and foremost, as far as the work that is being done and the planning that goes into that work, I think it has been well stated here

in terms of the partnership that has been undertaken between

EPA, D.C., and the Corps of Engineers, the work that is done by

the Corps is in fact done to the appropriate standards established

by EPA.

Ms. NORTON. So at EPA, Mr. Early, you then do an independent

evaluation yourself as to whether or not the Corps has met those

standards?

Mr. EARLY. Yes. EPA is responsible for reviewing the actions

that are proposed and determining the applicable standards both

at the Federal and the State level to figure out if there are more

stringent standards that the State has applied that are applicable

to the site. Then in our role in terms of concurring, we either concur with what is being proposed in terms of the finality of the action or we would say that there are some additional things that

need to be made to meet the standards that are applying at both

the Federal and the State levels.

Ms. NORTON. So the State has higher standards, in this case the

District of Columbia, that could be adopted?

Mr. EARLY. They can. They could have higher standards that

could go beyond and be more stringent than what the Federal

standards are.

Ms. NORTON. And EPA would adopt those standards?

Mr. EARLY. Well, we would make sure in terms of any cleanup

activities that are being undertaken that those would be complied

with over and above the Federal standards.

Ms. NORTON. Would the partners have an objection to an independent study? The silence is deafening. You have been working

very hard.

Mr. DAVIS. If I could just jump in on that one? We have an independent representative that provides input to the community on

behalf of the Restoration Advisory Board.

Ms. NORTON. Who is that?

Mr. DAVIS. I don’t have his name but I can provide that to you

all.

Ms. NORTON. I am sorry, I am looking for somebody above it all

who will look at the work and say that the work has been done or

not.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, ma’am. If I could just continue? When the work

that has been determined and the work plan gets to a point in time

when it is completed, if you will, the investigative work and the removal work is done, and any long term monitoring is in place, that

is when this process that was mentioned earlier, this remedial investigation feasibility study, is done. That basically is a very allencompassing document that will go back and look at all the work

that has been done up until that point in time, determine what it

achieved or, as Mr. Early said, did not achieve. From that document it will give us an indication as to whether or not we need to

continue work in certain areas where there may be gaps in the

work that had been done.

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That document will go out for public review and comment. We

will again take onboard the comments from the partners and from

the community and then go back and do any additional work that

needs to be done that was either not done or that was identified

that needed to be done as part of this process.

Ultimately though, getting to the answer to your question, once

we reach that agreement and the work is completed, then the

Corps of Engineers as the lead agent will issue a record of decision.

That will again document what work was done to ensure health

and human safety.

Ms. NORTON. Did you issue such a decision the two times you

previously left the site?

Mr. DAVIS. I believe at least on one of those occasions one was

in fact issued. I will go back and verify that.

Ms. NORTON. Who evaluated that decision? Did the EPA evaluate

that decision—it seems to be its job—when they left twice before?

Mr. EARLY. I am not sure based on my consultation whether or

not we concurred on the RAD [phonetic] back in 1995 when it happened.

Ms. NORTON. I can see the position. We have the EPA here. We

look to the EPA as the Federal agency for environmental matters.

I see the relationship of course with the State, in this case the District. It does seem to me that some of the problems raised here

have been problems about whether or not the EPA, at least now,

is intent upon doing its job as a Federal regulatory agency. Ultimately, they can do their plan and their decision to leave as just

described all they want to. But the Corps has no jurisdiction to declare an area environmentally safe at all. They are being regulated

as far as we are concerned. So we have to look to the EPA, which

doesn’t have the best reputation in this Spring Valley episode, to

do its job.

I cannot say to you that I have been convinced yet, we have some

time to go, that an independent evaluation will not be necessary.

The reason that anybody would even think of that is the sad story

of the lack of transparency all this time, including what the chairman had to say about finding out what the weapons are, weapons

that are so old and obsolete that they cannot possibly be matters

of national security. Yet people have been told that is why they

can’t know what the weapons are.

You see, when you hear that kind of thing, you lose confidence

in process. You think there must be something secret here. You

had better find out more. They really are hiding things. That is

why I think what the chairman has done to clear the air there is

going to be very important to do unless you can yourself do it. Because it is going to be necessary for everything to come out.

We don’t see any reason why, when we are talking about weapons that are a century old, anybody with a straight face would use

the term national security concern. We just don’t understand it. I

am on the Homeland Security Committee and I hear legitimate national security concerns all the time, but I haven’t heard any explained here today.

Let me go on to a few more questions. Are there any other areas

of the District of Columbia where the Army has either any intelligence or any suspicion that there are chemical weapons buried?

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Mr. DAVIS. Ma’am, while there are other FUDS sites in the District itself, there are no other sites at this point in time that we

believe have chemical munitions.

Ms. NORTON. I know there were some weapons in northeast. I

know they were in southeast where the Giant now is. I know that

has been cleaned up or the Giant wouldn’t be there. I just want to

know for the record, are there any more sites where there are

weapons? You say there are none? That is your testimony?

Mr. DAVIS. That is correct. Not to my knowledge. There is one

other site that we have in the District that has long term monitoring underway. It is one of the sites I think that you mentioned that

have been previously cleaned up. But other than that, no, there are

no other sites that we know of at the present that contain chemical

munitions.

Ms. NORTON. Has the Corps ever had to use the equipment you

propose to use in Spring Valley to destroy weapons in a residential

community before or close to a residential community?

Mr. DAVIS. Ma’am, the technology we are going to use for the destruction is similar to the technology that was used in Spring Valley in a residential setting back in 2003 when we destroyed 15

chemical munitions.

Ms. NORTON. So you are using the same equipment to destroy

this ordnance that you have all along been using or have used before here?

Mr. DAVIS. That is correct. We have done over 1,500 destruction

missions without incident.

Ms. NORTON. Finally, could I ask you, Mr. Early, why Spring

Valley has not been on your National Priorities List?

Mr. EARLY. It is our position that it hasn’t at this point in time

been necessary to put Spring Valley on the National Priorities List,

although that is an option that we continue to look at. Based upon

the experience that the agency has had with Spring Valley, the

partnership that we have developed in terms of the checks and balances that I think we have developed, and the fact that the Spring

Valley site has been given priority funding with regard to the

cleanup at the Army as well as sufficient funds being provided by

EPA to make sure that the work is done in an appropriate manner,

we haven’t seen fit to list the site on the NPL.

Ms. NORTON. So it is not dangerous enough at this point so far?

We would be pleased to know that.

Mr. EARLY. Well, we think this site is being adequately addressed in terms of the funding and the resources that are being

devoted to the site at this point in time. As I said, this is something

that we continue to monitor in the event that we think that is not

the case. That is an option that the agency is prepared to consider.

Ms. NORTON. The final question for me, the one unanswered

question that I certainly do not understand, has to do with the

troubling levels of perchlorate that have been found in the groundwater. I do not believe a source has been identified. It is hard to

understand how you are leaving the area with perchlorate having

been found in the groundwater, and we don’t even know where it

is coming from. Could you explain?

Mr. DAVIS. Ma’am, if I could just elaborate on that a little bit?

Of all the wells that we have in place there, we did have two detecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:41 Dec 14, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00174 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\53572.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tions. One was at about 144 parts per billion, which was in the vicinity of Glenbrook Road monitoring well in the AU area.

Ms. NORTON. I am talking about a source.

Mr. DAVIS. Right. First and foremost, the wells are helping us

detect where the perchlorate might be located. Then from that we

have procedures that we will use.

Ms. NORTON. Wait a minute. Stop so I can understand, please.

So the wells are helping us to understand where it is located? We

don’t know where the perchlorate comes from?

Mr. DAVIS. Not at the present. That is the purpose of the additional monitoring procedures that we will undertake this summer

with the placement of some additional monitoring wells. Some of

these wells are going to be at a deeper depth. Again, what we are

really trying to do is to determine what is the source. But at the

same time, we want to try to map underneath the surface where

we think the perchlorate is moving and where it came from.

Ms. NORTON. Is that the most serious problem you will have to

continue to monitor?

Mr. DAVIS. At this point it will be.

Ms. NORTON. Yes, Mr. Hawkins?

Mr. HAWKINS. I was going to agree that the reason that our view

is that it is premature to say that activities at the site are at a

closing point is because this second round of monitoring for perchlorate that has been planned, including deep wells, is exactly, as

you have suggested, the attempt to find the source. If a source is

found, there are new steps of work that will be needed to remove

that source. We just do not know that.

Ms. NORTON. You mean we don’t even know if it is ordnance or

if it is from sources that the Army Corps has been trying to rid us

of? You don’t even know that? They could be from something else?

Mr. DAVIS. That is correct.

Ms. NORTON. Well, that is obviously very disturbing because this

is when we found it.

Finally, could you tell me how the members of this Board are

chosen? This Residential Advisory Board has been very controversial in the community, yet it was established in order to establish

communication with the community. How are the members appointed? How are they chosen?

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, the community chooses their representatives for the committee. They have 14 community members.

Ms. NORTON. What do they do, have an election?

Colonel MUELLER. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. They have an election to choose who the members

of the Residential Advisory Board would be? I thought you had

something to do with that.

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, the Army Corps of Engineers is a

member of the RAB, a non-voting member, but the community

maintains or obtains 14 of their own members.

Ms. NORTON. I am just trying to find out who appoints them. I

know where they come from. Who appoints them?

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, the Army Corps of Engineers does not

appoint members of the RAB.

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Ms. NORTON. All right. Somebody tell me who appoints them.

Somebody has to be the appointing authority. I am just trying to

find who that is.

Colonel MUELLER. Ma’am, when the Restoration Advisory Board

was originally established in 2001, we did recruit the initial members. We asked for community members who were interested. But

after that initial time in 2001, they identify their own.

Ms. NORTON. So you appointed the first ones. As people left, then

who was the decisionmaker?

Colonel MUELLER. The RAB members themselves.

Ms. NORTON. Oh, I see. It is from inside the Board itself.

Colonel MUELLER. Yes, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. We have kept you a long

time because this is a complicated issue. We have appreciated your

patience in answering questions. The panel is dismissed.

We ask for the next panel to come forward. We will swear you

in quickly because it is the committee’s policy that all witnesses

are sworn in. Would you all raise your right hands?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Ms. NORTON. Please be seated. This the final panel. It is an important panel. It comes from the community and those who have

been most affected and most involved. President of American University, Cornelius Kerwin is the first alumnus to serve. He focuses

on public policy. Chairman Greg Beumel, the community co-chair

of the Residential Advisory Board, became co-chair in 2005 and has

served since 2002. Nan Wells, advisory neighborhood commissioner,

represents a community of 2,000 residents living in Spring Valley.

Thomas Smith, a 30 year resident of Spring Valley, represents the

Spring Valley American University and Westover Place neighborhoods. Kent Slowinski is a founding member of the Environmental

Heath Group, which of course investigates environmental health

problems. Finally, James Barton is president of Underwater Ordnance Recovery.

I am going to ask us to proceed forthwith with President Kerwin

first.

STATEMENTS OF CORNELIUS M. KERWIN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY; NAN SHELBY WELLS, ANC COMMISSIONER 3D03; THOMAS SMITH, ANC COMMISSIONER 3D02;

KENT SLOWINSKI, FORMER MEMBER, SPRING VALLEY RESTORATION ADVISORY BOARD; GREGORY A. BEUMEL, CHAIRMAN, SPRING VALLEY RESTORATION ADVISORY BOARD;

AND JAMES BARTON, PRESIDENT, UNDERWATER ORDNANCE

RECOVERY, INC.

STATEMENT OF CORNELIUS M. KERWIN

Mr. KERWIN. Thank you, Congresswoman Norton. I will be brief.

My name is Neil Kerwin. I have been president of American University for 4 years, serving as interim president from August 2005

to July 2007, and president from July 2007 until now. I have been

a member of the American University community for nearly 40

years.

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We appreciate this committee’s ongoing interest in this project,

knowing as we do that it is motivated by a concern for the safety

and well-being of everyone in northwest Washington.

American University participated in hearings on the Corps’ of

Engineers project that were held in July 2001 by the House Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. At that time, we provided

a substantial number of historical documents and communications

dating from 1917 through 2001 on the use of our campus by the

U.S. Government and the U.S. Army. The compendium is a valuable resource of project background and information provided by

American University, which was one of 10 properties in Spring Valley used by the U.S. Government in an effort to support the Nation

during wartime.

Fundamental to our action and our position on these matters are

a few overarching truths. American University did not produce,

test, bury, nor conceal chemical munitions. The war material produced, tested, and buried around Spring Valley and American University are the responsibility of the U.S. Government, the U.S.

Army, the Corps of Engineers, and now the partners with which it

works. American University has made available all information to

the Army Corps of Engineers regarding the cleanup.

The University has endured years of dislocation, suspended operations, business interruption, unreimbursed costs in the millions of

dollars, and periodic safety concerns as the Army Corps has conducted its multi-year effort to find and remove items from that era.

It has been our consistent position to act with an abundance of

caution to ensure the safety of all. Senior members of the University have been assigned to work with the Army Corps and to monitor their activity. We have hired outside expertise to independently assess the Army Corps’ work, to fully protect our campus,

and to ensure the safety of the surrounding area.

To assess risk, we hired Dr. Paul Chrostowski almost 10 years

ago as an advisor to the University to review the recommendations

and the work performed by the Corps and their contractors. He is

an environmental engineer, an applied toxicologist, and a chemist

whose expertise has benefited the University and the surrounding

community on matters ranging from the establishment of a stringent arsenic cleanup standard to recommending additional safety

measures on the Corps’ containment structure on Glenbrook Road.

AU’s ongoing information sharing efforts have expanded over the

past 20 years and have included campus memoranda, open meetings, new articles, materials posted electronically, and historical

documents in the University archives. The University Web site devoted to the Army Corps’ activity has been an information resource

with links and, we believe, helpful information. That site now includes more than 80 communications that have been posted with

project updates since the year 2000.

As risks have warranted, we have targeted specific populations

with pertinent information and taken additional measures over the

past 10 years such as hosting forums, meetings, and discussions;

instructing our staff, faculty, and students how to shelter in place;

suspending operations on high use athletic fields for 2 years; closing our Child Development Center, which serves as a daycare center and educational facility for our faculty’s and staff’s children, for

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9 years; and testing defined campus populations for arsenic poisoning. These are only a few examples.

Every outreach that we have done has been based on the nature

of a particular situation and the potential risk at hand. A high

probability occurrence might require a rapid response with specific

safety protocols while a low probability occurrence might prompt a

general sharing of information.

AU’s archives are open and accessible to anyone and have been

used extensively by journalists, government agencies, and community members to learn more about the history of these activities in

northwest Washington. The only archived documents not publically

available are Board of Trustees materials that deal with the American University as a private corporation and include confidential

information related to governance, personnel matters, third party,

and financial information.

To respond to questions whether these private records might contain pertinent information, in April 2005 AU Counsel made these

records available to independent parties from the Environmental

Protection Agency. They reviewed Trustee minutes and information

from that period and agreed there is no information included that

might help the Corps locate additional burial sites or to assist in

the cleanup and remediation. This was reported to the Restoration

Advisory Board [RAB], in May 2005 and in a partnering meeting.

We want to thank you for your help, Congresswoman Norton,

over the years to help ensure the affected areas in northwest

Washington are completely cleaned of all World War I debris and

byproducts and are fully and safely restored. We will, we have, and

we continue to do all we can to assist in that effort.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kerwin follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Kerwin. We are going

to go to Ms. Wells. Before we do, would everybody shift to the left

a little bit? The expert witness just arrived so we have a little

crowded table there. Ms. Wells.

STATEMENT OF NAN SHELBY WELLS

Ms. WELLS. Thank you so much, Congresswoman Norton. I just

want to thank you again for organizing the hearing today. Your

leadership on behalf of the Spring Valley residents has been crucial

in presenting our concerns and making certain that the cleanup is

thorough and complete before the Army Corps of Engineers leaves

the area again. My comments today will be brief.

As the ANC commissioner for a large part of Spring Valley extending to Dalecarlia Parkway, I have joined with my fellow Commissioner Tom Smith in working with the local and Federal officials responsible for the ongoing effort to remove World War I munitions, chemical weapons, and other contamination from the community in which we live.

The project schedule which was attached to my testimony and

which we have discussed indicates that the Army plans to finish

in fiscal year 2010, which ends September 30, 2010. That is only

about 16 months from now so we have less than 2 years. In 2011,

the Army would complete reports on the status of the cleanup and

the level of remaining contamination. However, it is not clear that

they will continue any of the more active investigations.

Furthermore, ongoing project activities and remediation have

been limited by insufficient funding. I realize there has been testimony to the contrary here but I base that on my participation in

the partnering meetings where I know that things have been set

aside or things have been put to a lower priority, even though in

my view they should be followed up.

There is considerable concern that the Army will end the active

investigations before the final reports that contain the required information on the cleanup are completed and reviewed by independent experts. I want to say how important it is, and I totally agree

with you, that we have independent experts verify the accuracy

and thoroughness of the effort.

In order to successfully complete this project, we need the following: No. 1, I would recommend an independent and expert review

of the project’s methods and data by the National Academy of

Sciences.

No. 2, we need additional funding sufficient to complete these

necessary investigations and the remediation activities. I might

add that American University was able to get an earmark to complete some of the work on their area. I think it was in fiscal year

2008.

Then No. 3, we need disclosure of all environmental data to the

public. I will note later on that while we can participate now in the

partnering meetings and we are now able to speak to our fellow

commissioners and to other public officials, we cannot release any

information from the partnering meetings to the public until it has

been specifically sort of declassified.

No. 4, and this follows along with this, we need increased transparency, accountability, and oversight from all of the participating

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agencies and involved institutions including the D.C. Department

of the Environment, the EPA, the Army Corps, and American University. We need to work together on these issues.

The Army began the cleanup, as everyone has stated, 16 years

ago but there was no organized exploration of the extent of the contamination until the accidental discovery of the munitions and

chemical filled weapons in the Spring Valley West section. There

is, however, evidence that various institutions and the Army Corps

knew at least as early as 1986 that there were possible burial sites.

The AUES site and operations were extensive. Some of the written sources I have seen say that Camp Leach involved as many as

100,000 soldiers and 1,200 chemists and engineers. It has also been

described as the world’s second largest poison gas facility in 1917

and 1918.

As has been stated before, the Army Corps declared Spring Valley safe and left. Again in 1995 they declared it safe. But the D.C.

Department of Health and the dedicated professionals in that Department contested that decision. Following that, the large toxic

sites on Glenbrook Road were located in 1998.

However, the Army withdrew from a part of that site in 2002

after 4 years when the contractor who owned the property withdrew permission for access to his property. They left the site unfinished. I might note that this has been an issue on a variety of properties. Looking for various bunkers and other sources, they have

not used their walk in authority. We have a recent case in which

they wanted to place a groundwater well, a deep well, and they

went through 5 years of negotiations with the property owners

until EPA threatened to march in. The family finally agreed to

allow some monitoring to go on. So I would argue that this has delayed the project because they have been unwilling to use the authority they have.

There is also concern about the Army’s plans to destroy chemical

munitions in the neighborhood as I understand just now in August

of this year. Although the Army has destroyed munitions using this

same technology before, it is my understanding, and I am pretty

certain about this, this will be the first time the process will be

used to destroy explosively configured munitions that could release

arsene gas.

It is a highly toxic chemical for which there is no antidote. The

Army currently plans to destroy the munitions and neutralize the

chemicals left behind in an area just behind Sibley Hospital, near

the Grand Oaks Retirement Residence, near the D.C. reservoir,

and next to a Spring Valley residential neighborhood. We have

urged that the destruction be undertaken at a Federal facility, of

which there are many in D.C. and the surrounding area.

Similar destruction, I believe, in the past has only been done on

military bases or was done once in a very lightly populated area

of Arkansas. But they have never destroyed munitions, explosively

configured, containing arsene gas. Now they do have and have set

up special conditions to contain the release of gas but nonetheless

you have a hospital, a retirement home, and a residential neighborhood.

I might point out some of the inconsistencies that we face as

ANC commissioners. On the one hand, we are told that the storage

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and destruction of these materials, explosively configured arsene,

are so safe that the process can take place in this location. However, we are told that the materials are so dangerous that we cannot know exactly what they are. This inconsistency doesn’t inspire

confidence.

In 2007, when I asked for a report on the results of the prior investigations carried out on Glenbrook Road from 1999 to 2002, I

was told that report had never been completed and therefore could

not be released so I could not see it. It is still not available. That

investigation ended in 2002.

Groundwater monitoring is critically important both in determining the levels of contamination and in locating potential sites of

contamination, as the Congresswoman has stated. The project has

installed a large number of groundwater monitoring wells around

the reservoir and the University. However, groundwater in these

wells has not been tested since 2007, almost 21⁄2 years ago. There

are plans to test the wells in 2009, but it is June and to date no

testing has been done. Additional groundwater wells are scheduled

to be installed this year in order to further determine the flow of

groundwater near the reservoir. However, still no regular schedule

for testing groundwater has been proposed.

My experience, contrary to some of the testimony of the GAO

representative, is that too much of the information on the contamination discovered thus far has been restricted, often for reasons

that don’t make sense. National security is frequently cited as the

reason data and other information cannot be shared, that we cannot share it with others, and that indeed much of it can’t be shared

with us. We are told that the information would be useful to terrorists.

I am well aware of national security concerns. I held a secret

clearance while I worked for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute. I understand security needs, but I have never

seen the kind of security excuses, if you will, that we have been

receiving for the information we need.

When I first began attending the meetings of the partnering

group which you have heard much about, the agencies and whatnot, that was only when I became an elected ANC official. Only

local officials, members of the agencies, or members of the RAB are

able to attend the partnering meetings. I was not allowed to discuss at first any of the information, when I first did this, that I

learned with my fellow ANC commissioners, including Tom Smith,

other public officials, or members of the public. Even agency representatives were not allowed to share the information they were

given at the meetings with their supervisors.

Sometimes it appears that the partnership serves to restrict challenges to Army plans and to delay progress of the plans.

In addition to concerns about health and safety, the location of

a major D.C. reservoir near the area of contamination leads to

questions about the possible impact on residents in other areas of

the city. In testimony presented on April 12, 2006 to the D.C. Committee on Public Works and Environment, Colonel Robert J. Davis,

Commander, Baltimore District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, described why the testing of groundwater especially for contaminants

like perchlorate is so important.

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Colonel Davis stated the following at the hearing: ‘‘As discussed

at the Spring Valley RAB meeting last night, our groundwater elevation data does suggest that some limited groundwater is likely

seeping into the reservoir at specific locations. However, we expect

this volume of groundwater to be minute compared to Potomac

River water entering the reservoir every day, and we have had no

significant detections in groundwater wells closest to the reservoir.

Our phase 2 investigation later this year and next year will provide

much more information as to whether any Spring Valley groundwater contamination detected upgradient of the reservoir could

pose a future risk.’’

While Tom Smith and I now have the ability to discuss information with public officials and they can discuss information with others in the agencies, agency and public access to information remains limited. The D.C. Department of the Environment is not allowed to know the chemicals that will be brought into D.C. for use

in the destruction of the munitions this summer, nor have they

been given the identity of the chemicals in the hazardous waste

that will be produced.

Our concerns in Spring Valley are not that different from many

FUDS communities. Having spent most of my professional life

working with scientists and with universities in support of science,

I am not here to criticize or complain. It is crucial that all the parties and agencies work together to complete the successful remediation of this site which my neighbors and I call home. We must

make certain that public health and safety are protected and that

the data verifying the cleanup is released to the public.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to appear before the

committee.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wells follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Ms. Wells.

I want to alert this panel that in 20 minutes to a half hour even

the voteless Delegate from the District of Columbia gets to vote.

There is a vote in the committee and I wrote a memorandum that

has resulted in my being able to vote there. So I would like to get

this hearing completed before then. I am going to ask everyone to

briefly summarize their testimony so I can make sure we get to everybody before I have to leave myself.

Mr. Smith, I am very glad to hear from you now.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS SMITH

Mr. SMITH. Good afternoon. My name is Thomas Smith. I have

lived in Spring Valley for nearly 30 years, as you mentioned. For

the last 3, I have served as an ANC commissioner representing

Spring Valley and part of the American University campus.

Few if any residents knew that the AU campus was used as the

second largest chemical weapons research and testing facility in

the world during World War I until munitions were discovered in

1993 during new home construction. Only then did residents learn

that weapons had been found previously during construction on the

AU campus and that the Army was aware of the potential dangers

that existed in our neighborhood. Whatever their reasons, both

American University and the Army kept this information concealed. This pattern of non-disclosure by both institutions continues

today.

The decision by the Corps to leave the community prematurely

in 1995 along with the way the Corps has interacted with the community since returning to the neighborhood, including the operations of the Army-created RAB, has cast a long shadow of doubt

on the credibility of the Corps. These concerns are heightened

when reviewing the experiences of so many other communities

across the country dealing with similar problems.

The Corps has not yet finished assessing various areas of interest in the community or dealing with the serious groundwater

problem. Decisions are being made about whether certain areas of

interest thought to be possible sites of contamination, burial, or

anomalies are worth additional investigation. The new 2010 deadline is an incentive to neglect, as before, the type of investigation

that is needed to ensure our community is safe.

The team charged with the responsibility of searching for and

identifying potential areas of interest, the Area of Interest

Taskforce referred to earlier by Colonel Mueller, has been disbanded, according to the Army because one of the members has retired.

Much information about this project is hidden from the public on

the basis of national security, enabling the Corps to escape the

public scrutiny and accountability that should be a routine part of

this cleanup process. Too often we are forced to play the role of

amateur sleuth and be laser precise in our language even to learn

the most basic of information about this cleanup.

There are too many unanswered questions to limit the investigation at this time. We have the high levels of perchlorate in the

groundwater. The groundwater has not been monitored for 2 years,

unlike in some other States dealing with the military’s pollution of

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the groundwater. The nearly 30 jugs of mustard gas near a burial

site in the archival photographs and said to be a deep burial site

have never been found. There are questions about whether an upcoming investigation at the Dalecarlia Woods will cover a large

enough area.

Additional questions are being raised about the limits of the

equipment used to conduct the geophysical investigations of key

sites in the community and whether more sophisticated but expensive technology might provide the information of what is underground at deeper levels. There is historical evidence of another burial pit near the campus, known as the Courier or Osborne Pit,

thought to contain the nearly $800,000 worth of chemical weapons

in 1918 dollars. And there is no indication that an aggressive effort

is in place to locate this pit.

Residents have long sought testing of the air in their homes, especially given the high concentration of arsenic in the soil and the

presence of arsene gas in munitions. The Corps has said that such

testing was not technologically feasible, yet the Army conducted

such air testing in containment structures when investigating a recent burial pit. The State of Wisconsin has mandated indoor air

testing for homes near groundwater that is contaminated with perchlorate because of threats to the health of home owners. But there

are no plans to conduct indoor air testing at homes in Spring Valley where the groundwater runs at basement level.

Although our surface soil has been tested for arsenic, why is the

Corps not testing for manganese and mercury which also have been

found in high concentrations in our neighborhood? Recently there

was a new find of mercury at the AU Public Safety Building.

I welcome the comments today of Mr. Hawkins, especially since

DDOE acknowledged in a public roundtable convened by the D.C.

Council just last month that it was playing a ‘‘passive role’’ in the

cleanup.

Recently some residents indicated an interest in using land once

owned by AU for a playground. This area was thought at one time

to include a bunker that has not been ‘‘pinpointed’’ according to the

Corps. There is no additional investigation of this site planned even

though in recent years part of this land also has been slated for

future development. Can the Corps assure us that this land is safe

for children and that new home construction will not unearth the

kind of munitions that were found 16 years ago? Our questions to

the Corps and AU about this site have so far gone unanswered.

Are there risks that we must learn to live with in our community? Absolutely. But these should be informed decisions, not circumstances forced upon us.

Two weeks ago I learned from a friend of mine that a college

buddy of hers had died recently of a brain tumor in his middle 50’s.

He was one of three who had died of cancer in recent years at

roughly the same age. All three lived at a fraternity on campus

that now houses the AU Child Development Center. There was an

obituary in the Washington Post just this week of a former resident

of Spring Valley who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor but

died at 50 from complications of pulmonary fibrosis, a disease

thought rare for that age. We hear almost routinely of residents or

former residents with new diagnoses of peripheral neuropathies, a

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common manifestation of arsenic poisoning. There are many more

health related stories that could be told but a comprehensive

health care study has never been conducted within our community.

So there is a lot at stake for us. Cleaning up the community is

not just a matter of safeguarding the environment in which we live.

It is also about protecting the health and well-being of multiple

generations of residents.

When weapons were found in our community by accident in

1993, they were helicoptered out and sent elsewhere to be stored

and destroyed. Today, those weapons are stored and destroyed in

our community, the only residential community where toxic chemical weapons are destroyed, in this case less than 1,000 feet from

a hospital. At least that is the information that we were provided

by the Army Corps at a community meeting last March. We know

that the AUES was——

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Smith, we are going to run out of time.

Mr. SMITH. I have one more sentence.

Ms. NORTON. All right.

Mr. SMITH. OK? I promise you, one more sentence.

Each of our residents in Spring Valley and throughout the city

has a right to know that military pollution left over from this

chemical research conducted in D.C. poses no danger to current or

future residents. That is our responsibility to the people who elected us. It is one that I and others here today are more than ready

to share with this subcommittee and any other elected or appointed

official in D.C.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. Mr. Slowinski.

STATEMENT OF KENT SLOWINSKI

Mr. SLOWINSKI. My name is Kent Slowinski. I grew up in Spring

Valley in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Since the 1970’s, I have worked in

Spring Valley as a landscape crew member, contractor, and architect. I am also a former RAB member.

As the Army Corps likes to say, bottom line up front. The current

process is just not working. Over the past 16 years we have had

to endure flawed sampling, secret sampling, sampling that never

took place, incomplete historical research, attempts to rewrite history, several uninvestigated burial pits, no cumulative health risk

assessments, a dysfunctional RAB, and more recently a 1-year

backlog in posting partnering meeting minutes to the Spring Valley

Web site.

If the Army Corps can’t even post minutes in a timely manner,

can we trust them with destroying chemical munitions less than

1,000 feet from the District’s water supply? Davis Robertson, one

of the original RAB members, said if the Army Corps was a private

contractor they would have been fired a long time ago.

The Spring Valley issue became personal for me in 1995 when

my mason found a Stokes mortar while working on a house on

Sedgewick Street. The current owners are dealing with serious

health problems and one of the previous owners developed a brain

tumor. On the same block were two cases of aplastic anemia in the

same house, 20 years apart. Both were fatal. One was a 7-year old

girl; the other was a 70 year old man. Aplastic anemia is very rare.

Just one case raises red flags. On three adjacent properties were

three cases of multiple myeloma, again each one fatal. On another

adjacent property was one case of pernicious anemia. That individual, Camille Saum, survived. She and her sister, Beth Junium, collected anecdotal health information from their neighbors.

This was the beginning of the Northwest Current’s Spring Valley

Disease Survey. You don’t have to be a Harvard trained epidemiologist to know that something is terribly wrong here. We

have been living with this toxic brew of more than 600 AUES

chemicals for 90 years now. To date, we know of more than 200

residents, students, and workers with health problems associated

with chemical exposure. My name, as well as several friends and

family members, is on that list.

The 2007 Johns Hopkins Scoping Study, not a health study,

found that residents’ anecdotal health problems were consistent

with the existing scientific literature on exposure to chemical warfare agents and agent breakdown products. Unfortunately, the followup health study has been delayed and is only partially funded.

We need another $500,000 to fully fund the study. We need to include some of the early and longtime Spring Valley residents in

that study.

Little is being done to educate people about the symptoms of exposure or to assist residents, students, and workers who may have

been exposed. We will likely need additional funding for medical

monitoring and for independent sampling of soil, air, and water to

determine if the Army Corps’ cleanup is truly complete.

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I don’t know how you can conduct a thorough cleanup when the

historical research is incomplete and a conceptual site model for

Spring Valley has never been developed. These are the first two

steps of any cleanup. It makes you wonder if the Army Corps really

wants to be here and do the work.

It is clear that the current process is not working, but what do

we do? One solution is to put Spring Valley on the Superfund National Priorities List and have EPA take the lead along with a

more proactive D.C. Department of the Environment. Another possibility is to ask the National Academy of Sciences to do a study

on the thoroughness of the cleanup.

Looking at the bigger picture, at current Pentagon funding levels of just $250 million annually, it will take 80 to 160 years to clean

up the known contamination at 3,000 to 5,000 formerly used defense sites. If annual FUDS funding was increased to $2 billion,

these sites could be cleaned up in a much more reasonable 10 to

20 years.

To conclude, one, we need more transparency and oversight. Two,

we need to a better job at researching, investigating, and cleaning

up Spring Valley. Three, we need to do a better job protecting the

health and safety of the citizens of the District of Columbia. And

four, we need your help. It is time for a change.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Slowinski follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Slowinski. Mr. Beumel.

STATEMENT OF GREGORY BEUMEL

Mr. BEUMEL. Congresswoman Norton and members of the committee, I want to thank you for the invitation to speak to you

today. I am Greg Beumel, the community co-chair of the Spring

Valley Restoration Advisory Board [RAB]. I began serving on the

RAB in June 2002 and became co-chair in 2005. I have also served

on the Science Task Group of the RAB and am Chair of that group.

I am joined today by Dr. Peter deFur, the science advisor of the

RAB.

To answer some previous questions, the Restoration Advisory

Board was established by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under

DOD regulations to obtain community input into the Environmental Restoration Program at Spring Valley. Members come from

two categories, residential and institutional. Residential members

are volunteers who must live or work within the boundary of the

FUDS. Institutional members represent the major institutions in

Spring Valley and include AU, the Horace Mann Elementary

School, the D.C. Department of the Environment, the U.S. EPA,

and the Army Corps of Engineers. When voting to provide advice

to the Army, only residential members are counted.

Briefly, I am a toxicologist with 20 years experience in human

health risk assessment, quantitative and qualitative analysis of

chemical data, regulatory support, data base management, communications, and program and project management. I performed more

than 50 risk assessments at Federal facilities nationwide ranging

from baseline risk assessments to toxicity assessments.

This statement is my own evaluation and comment on the cleanup at Spring Valley. It is based on a meeting with the Science Task

Group of the RAB, consisting of Dr. David Feary, a geologist on the

staff of the National Research Council, and Dr. Peter deFur, the

technical advisor to the RAB who is a Research Associate Professor

at Virginia Commonwealth University and a full time private consultant. Much of this testimony was presented by Dr. deFur at a

meeting called by Councilmember Mary Cheh of the District of Columbia City Council.

Jumping ahead to save time, an upcoming project concern is the

plan to destroy military munitions recovered during the investigations that are now ending. The plan to destroy the munitions in an

especially designed and constructed mobile facility located on the

Federal property makes sense and presents the lowest risk situation, in my professional opinion and that of the members of the

RAB Science Task Group. Our conclusion is based on risk factors

identified for destruction activities, the design and operation of the

destruction equipment, and the characteristics of the known

threats to human health.

Two of the greatest risk factors are the handling and the transport of such items. Each handling increases the probability that a

mistake can result in an accident. Transportation not only requires

special permits from any State through which the items must move

but increases the probability for accidents and unexpected events.

In terms of special actions and risks onsite, the risks are lowered

by the fact of two containment systems, air handling systems, well

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tested equipment, experienced operators, distance from the facility

to any residents or commercial facilities, and a plan to monitor

local weather and proceed only when safe conditions prevail. Given

all the specific risk factors, I agree with the decision to proceed

with onsite destruction using this equipment.

In 1993, the Army dramatically flew Spring Valley munitions out

of the neighborhood via helicopter. Those days have ended as communities realize that they do not want to become a secondary

dumping ground for highly dangerous materials recovered in another community.

In 1999, the Army completed fabrication of a usable prototype of

the mobile explosive destruction system that has allowed for the

destruction of chemical munitions closer to the location of discovery. Since then the EDS has been used at a number of communities

throughout the United States, including Spring Valley, with great

success.

In the look for independent oversight, I don’t claim to have independent oversight. But we do have a technical advisor who works

for the RAB and has been represented in most of the technical discussions and deliberations. They have taken his input and contributions on par with other agency input.

According to Army policy, this TAPP grant is supposed to last for 5 years with a $25,000 limit on each year. On two occasions I have

requested that the Baltimore District Commander of the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers ask the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army

to waive caps on the TAPP grants for Spring Valley. In both cases

my request has been granted. We continue to receive funding and

continue to have this outside technical expertise available to the

community.

He attends the monthly technical partnering meeting when

available. He also attends calls and meetings on groundwater, soil

sampling, determining the list of chemicals to sample, special site

investigations, etc. He was part of the group that investigated

other areas that may have been overlooked, the Area of Interest

Taskforce. And he helped arrange a site visit by Rick Woods, who

had discovered munitions more than 10 years ago.

I am going to jump to the end because I know you are out of

time. The purpose of these investigations is to find other World

War I era items if they exist so I will be surprised if additional discoveries are not made. The current schedule leaves time for additional discoveries of the size made this past May of World War I

75 millimeter munition items and pieces of grenades. If there is a

major discovery such as a new burial pit, the schedule will need adjustment. At this point, we will need to see the resolve of the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers to complete the project.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Beumel follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you. Mr. Barton, let us take as much of your

testimony as we can. That is the 15 minute bell. It usually lasts

more than 15 minutes but I would like you to summarize your testimony, please.

STATEMENT OF JAMES BARTON

Mr. BARTON. Yes, ma’am. Thank you. We haven’t found everything that is at Spring Valley and we are not going to the way we

are doing it. A new methodology is called for, one that is not being

used anywhere else in the country, that uses the latest science and

technology and brilliant minds to detect the presence of and map

trace amounts of these toxins.

We need third party oversight. We need somebody who is not

currently at the table, I think. But we definitely need a new approach of doing it.

There are new and emerging technologies that are non-invasive

and allow us to take atmospheric, surface water, runoff water, and

groundwater samplings quicker, faster, smarter, and more effectively which can direct our remedial efforts in the right direction.

If your house, for instance, has gas coming in it, we will do what

we can do then because we know where it is coming from. If we

can’t eliminate it, perhaps that house has to go. But at lease we

now have a focused look using the latest technology. And we are

not doing it. We are using standard protocols as you would anywhere else in the country.

There is nothing normal about this particular site. This is the

birth of our chemical weapons program for this country and it is

in unrestricted residential use. Oh my God, you know? They were

mixing and matching everything here. And you can find it everywhere. And we haven’t found it everywhere. We haven’t even

begun to find a lot of this stuff.

But what is most important is finding what is coming into your

homes, finding what is killing us. Why are there people in the

ground? Why are there professionals who are not in their offices

anymore and don’t have a job anymore because they rub somebody

the wrong way?

There are a lot of things we can do better than what we are

doing right now. I would like to help do that if I could.

Incidentally, and forgive me for not introducing myself, my name

is James Barton. I am the president of Underwater Ordnance Recovery. I am a subject matter expert on munitions. I have been diving on piles of bombs for 34 years and because of the nature of my

business, I am quite familiar with these.

Science is the answer, the new technologies and the science to

detect and track trace amounts of toxins.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barton follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much. Let me say that the purpose

of this testimony was not to, forgive me, cross examine the community, as it were. You are not the responsible parties. Of course, the

RAB members have some responsibility but, again, they are not

public officials. The point was to hear from people within the community, essentially a critique of what has been done. Now that has

to be weighed alongside what the Army, the Army Corps, the EPA,

and the officials said.

I want to express my appreciation for the Corps and the Army

for remaining to hear you out. I had wanted to hear the community

first because in fairness I thought the Army should be able to, for

example, respond to some of what we heard. I think they would

have felt better about responding since the whole point here is to

solve a problem and to be truly transparent. But I appreciate that

you regarded the testimony of the community important enough so

that, as late as it is, you have stayed to hear it.

I must say, when we hear testimony, for example, and he had to

give it this way, this is Mr. Beumel’s testimony with some boiler

plate in here, I have signed a confidentially agreement, one of the

rest of you said that, too, speaking to a Member of Congress,

speaking to a committee of Congress, I have signed a confidentiality agreement about some munitions that are 100 years old, and so

I can’t tell you what the weapons are, and I can’t tell the community what the weapons are, that is a problem.

This community is going to know what those weapons were when

this is all over. And I use the word were advisably because they

were. I think what we have already found out in the 16 years you

have been there is that most of what was there has withered away

in some way or the other.

The health study notions are important. This is very controversial because after health studies nobody is ever able to say, when

it comes to cancer, that this was the cause. You are able to see certain kinds of trends and make certain kinds of conclusions, and

then I am not sure what you do about them.

But the remaining problem in this period is, as far as we are concerned, the Army’s self declaration that it is leaving. Nobody leaves

until the Congress of the United States says yes, we think it is

time to go. We will have to see what these 2 years bring us. Much

will depend on the transparency of the effort. We begin with transparency of what in the world we are talking about and what we

have been talking about for 16 years. We don’t even know that.

It makes many in the community, and it certainly makes this

Member of Congress, feel that we are at ground zero because we

don’t even know what we have been digging about all this time. It

is an absurdity, of course, but it is a bureaucratic absurdity that

has been put upon everybody, including the public officials who are

here. Because it is obviously above their pay grade. We are going

to find out whose pay grade it is.

It would be impossible for this subcommittee and this full committee to authorize the end of this effort without knowing what we

were ending and without the community knowing what we were

ending.

The testimony has been very important. We have been taking

notes and then we remembered that we will have it in writing in

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any case. So these questions can be presented to the first witnesses

who have been kind enough to stay so that they can have the opportunity to respond to them.

The subcommittee remains most interested in how we are going

to reach agreement that the time has come to go. We are fully

aware that we are dealing with ongoing issues and that they may

come again. Mr. Beumel, I think your point was well taken. When

we are talking about things that are hidden so deeply that we don’t

even know where they are, we can’t say that nothing will ever happen again. That is why the nature of the monitoring and the nature of the testing frankly looks like testing and monitoring that

is going to have to be permanent. As long as you tell me that there

are places that you will never get to because they are buried so

deeply and you don’t even know where they are, I don’t know that

in that sense this site will ever be vacated as far as the Government is concerned.

I want to thank all of the witnesses, particularly for this testimony which has been invaluable to this committee. Of course as I

indicated, this is the beginning. We don’t mean to subject everybody to a continuous round of hearings but we have to answer the

questions that you have very appropriately raised and have been

raised throughout this hearing.

I thank you very much for this testimony. The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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