[CPEO-MEF] CHEMWEAPONS, FORMER SITES: "The Toxic Waste Pit Next Door, " Spring Valley, DC

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The Toxic Waste Pit Next Door

Nearly 100 years after the Army buried chemical weapons in DC's  
Spring Valley, it's still finding bombs and lethal chemicals under  
the homes there. Some residents fear for their children's safety.  
Others believe the toxins have already made them sick.

By Harry Jaffe
Washingtonian (DC)
February 28, 2013

It was the back yard that sold Christine Dieterich on the yellow  
brick Cape Cod on Glenbrook Road. She fell in love with the terraced  
gardens, pictured her children racing around outside and traversing  
the little bridge across a creek into the woods.

...

The Corps has been trying for years to pinpoint the location of a  
waste pit pictured in a grainy 1918 photograph. Sergeant Charles  
Maurer, shown standing over the pit, wrote on the back: "The most  
feared and respected place on the grounds. The bottles are full of  
mustard, to be destroyed here. In Death Valley. The hole called Hades."

The Corps now believes that it has found "the hole called Hades" -  
directly across the street from Christine Dieterich's home.

This past November, she watched from her kitchen as Army contractors  
tore down the three-story brick house at 4825 Glenbrook. The Corps  
will spend an estimated $12 million to excavate and restore the site.  
The dig could last into 2014.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/the-toxic-waste-pit-next- 
door/index.php

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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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