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Weapons of Mass Collegiate Destruction

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from: Bonnie Goldstein

Posted Monday, Oct. 15, 2007, at 4:03 PM ET

During World War I, the U.S. Army's preferred method to dispose of ordnance, toxic liquids, and the detritus of poison gas experiments was to dig a deep hole and toss the stuff in. That's what it did nearly 90 years ago on the leafy campus of American University, a portion of whose acreage in upper northwest Washington, D.C., it had leased as a chemical weapons test site.

This month, the Army Corps of Engineers is undertaking its latest dig at the site, part of a 15-year effort to remove arsenic-contaminated soil and exhume the deadly substances underneath at suspected burial locations around D.C.'s largely residential Spring Valley neighborhood. American University first became concerned about the existence of underground hazards in 1993, when a backhoe digging a sewer at a construction site unearthed a cache of weapons. The discovery spurred a series of excavations, evacuations, lawsuits, government investigations, a troubling survey of environmental illnesses, and at least one premature report of completion by the Corps.

American University President Neil Kerwin, in a statement posted last month on the school's Web site (see below and on the following four pages), assures the "campus community" that while the chemical agents the Army suspects are present "can cause both short-term and long-term harmful physical effects" (Page 3), the project contractors will be "implementing a number of safety precautions," including building "a containment structure and filtration unit" (below) around the pit. To guard against any accidental "release of harmful chemicals into the environment," there will be "monitors to detect any unusual airborne agent." In the event of a release, a siren will sound, and an automated telephone tree will whir into action.

Even though a "chemical release is highly unlikely," the university is holding a series of briefings about "shelter-in-place" precautions ("you go inside a building and stay there for the duration of the alarm. The windows are closed and the heating/cooling systems are shut off to prevent possible intake of contaminated air"; see Page 4). Kerwin writes that although "some may consider the precautions … excessive," he will "accept that criticism … to ensure the maximum level of safety for the university's faculty, students, staff and visitors." Apparently Kerwin does not wish to have it said of him, as President Bush said of Saddam Hussein, that he "gassed his own people."

The 14-week excavation will occur at "burial pit 3," located on a small campus street that includes a university president's residence (currently unoccupied). This latest dig is expected to be the final phase of removal—unless, the munitions project manager speculates, "we find another pit."

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hot document
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from: Bonnie Goldstein

Posted Monday, Oct. 15, 2007, at 4:03 PM ET
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Bonnie Goldstein is a former special investigator to the U.S. Senate and investigative producer for ABC News.
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