No signs of major pollution seen at NSA campus

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Maryland
BALTIMORE SUN
No signs of major pollution seen at NSA campus
Fort Meade tenant releases edited contamination study, long sought by
some
By Rona Kobell
Originally published March 16, 2004, 3:15 PM EST

After months of pressure from environmental regulators and Army
officials, the National Security Agency finally has released a
contamination study that shows no signs of major pollution at the
sprawling, super-secret campus in Odenton.

NSA officials released the inch-thick, three-part Building Survey and
Contamination Assessment at last week's meeting of the Restoration
Advisory Board, a group of citizens and regulators overseeing Fort
Meade's Superfund cleanup. NSA is a tenant on Fort Meade.

Six months ago, the board learned that NSA had completed the study and
that the agency had released part of it to the Environmental Protection
Agency in 2002, but had taken it back because of a post-Sept. 11
security directive.

NSA Senior Environmental Engineer Juan Boston said his agency intended
to release the information to the public, but had to edit out building
names and locations.

"We're not above the law or sheltered from the law in any way," Boston
said. "It was a security call, what was to be left in and what was to be
taken out. And no environmental information was taken out."

Boston said the NSA was "pretty clean," with only trace amounts of
pesticides and organic compounds. Considering the industry at the
agency, which makes its own computer chips and paper, Boston said he
expected the contractors might find more areas of concern.

"We actually expected more than what we found. We're actually quite
surprised with what we're getting," he said. "There is no contamination
on campus, or migrating from campus, that poses any threat to human
health and the environment."

The advisory board asked NSA to conduct the study as part of an effort
to identify and clean up contamination at the 86-year-old Fort Meade
Army post, a major camp for soldiers in both world wars. In 1998, the
EPA placed the entire base, including NSA, on its Superfund list of the
nation's most hazardous sites, mostly because of pollution from fuels,
munitions and solvents.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-nsa0316,0,1799125.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

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