Graces Quarters (Aberdeen Proving Ground) cleanup plan

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Army to meet with residents about cleanup

$6 million plan focuses on APG peninsula; Unusual method will be used;
Groundwater contains cancer-causing solvent

By Lane Harvey Brown 
Baltimore Sun 

April 25, 2004

The Army plans to meet with residents Tuesday night in Baltimore County
to lay out a nearly $6 million plan to clean up groundwater on an
Aberdeen Proving Ground peninsula that is fouled by a cancer-causing
solvent. 

Graces Quarters, a restricted area on the Gunpowder River and Dundee
Creek - adjacent to the Hammerman Area of Gunpowder Falls State Park -
was a testing area for chemical warfare agents and decontaminants in the
1950s and 1960s. 

Carroll Island to the south was an open-air test site for blistering,
nerve and other chemical agents. 

The aquifer is not a drinking-water source for any off-post communities,
researchers and regulators say, and U.S. Geological Survey tests show
that the water flows away from private wells farther inland. 

But the highest levels of the solvent are 7,000 times as high as what
the Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the
Environment say are acceptable. 

"I'm glad they're doing something about it and not just walking away,"
said University of Maryland toxicologist Cal Baier-Anderson, who works
with the community on environmental cleanup issues at APG. 

...

for the entire story, see
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/harford/bal-ha.graces25apr25,0,669407.story?coll=bal-local-harford 

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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