Cleanup of Chemical and Explosive Munitions. Locating, Identifying Contaminants, and Planning for Environmental Remediation of Land and Sea Military Ranges and Ordnance Dumpsites

343 Pages·2008·5.269 MB·English

by  Richard D. Albright (Auth.)

Foreword
In 1991 I wrote, in the introduction to a report called The U.S. Military’s
Toxics Legacy:
Imagine, for a moment, that a foreign nation has dispatched a
band of terrorists to the United States. The intruders silently
move across the landscape depositing toxic chemicals at a thou-
sand sites around the country. Some of the toxic compounds
quickly enter the rivers and underground reservoirs that sup-
ply America with drinking water. Other chemicals contaminate
our neighborhoods and backyards where our children play. Still
others sit like time bombs, destined to contaminate our water
supplies after months, years, or even decades. The toxic chemicals
carried by these enemies are the products of the most sophis-
ticated laboratories on Earth. They cause birth defects, liver
disease, and cancer. Their effects may be felt for generations.
Unquestionably, if this imagined threat were real, we would
turn to the Pentagon to combat this threat to our national security.
After all, the Pentagon’s job is to defend the nation against
outside enemies.
But what do we do when the threat comes, not from abroad,
but from the Department of Defense (DOD) itself? What if our
own worst enemy is the same institution that is charged with
defending us?
We turn to environmental regulators like Rich Albright.
I fi rst met Rich in February 2001. I was in DC for a meeting, and a friend
invited me to an Army Corps of Engineers-sponsored community meet-
ing at Sibley Hospital, in the Spring Valley neighborhood in northwest
Washington. This area, as Rich documents, contains a witches’ brew of old
chemical warfare materiel, other hazardous substances, and unexploded
ordnance left over from its days, during World War I, as the American
University Experimental Station.
The Army Corps had conducted an emergency response for this “For-
merly Used Defense Site” in the early 1990s, declared victory, and moved
on. But Rich Albright, representing the DC Department of Health, forced
the Corps to begin a much larger investigation. This effort marched along
slowly, under the radar screen of Washington’s hyperactive mass media,
until January 2001, when it made the front page of Washington Post. High
concentrations of arsenic—the active ingredient in many early chemical
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xviii Foreword
weapons—had been found in soil around the American University Child
Development Center.
Between 250 and 300 people crowded the Sibley auditorium for the
Army’s regular community meeting. Attendees included the wife of a U.S.
Senator—who lives in Spring Valley—and scores of lawyers for the Dis-
trict’s high-powered law fi rms—all residents of the neighborhood. They
were upset, but polite. A few were outspoken. They had many questions.
In my work, I’ve visited dozens of communities in the U.S. that host active
or former military installations and ranges. Spring Valley is near the top of
the list, in terms of public exposure to really nasty stuff, as well as the politi-
cal infl uence of its residents. So it’s one of the most active programs. But
people at other former military facilities from the Aleutians to Puerto Rico
are similarly concerned, with just as many unanswered questions.
Overall, I think I’ve had a better experience than Rich with the Army
Corps, the entity with primary cleanup responsibility at Formerly Used
Defense Sites. I’ve found many Army Corps personnel and their contrac-
tors to be diligent and competent, though the constraints of funding and
bureaucracy often get in the way. Still, one only needs to look at former
U.S. facilities overseas, in places like Panama and the Philippines, to rec-
ognize the essential role played by environmental regulatory agencies such
as the DC Health Department.
I think few people are surprised when live munitions are found on old
battlefi elds, such as the forests of Verdun, the jungles and rice paddies of
Indochina, or the Kuwaiti desert. However, not many people recognize
that the most bombs, shells, and grenades are fi red in training or testing,
while many more have been discarded en mass when they have become
unserviceable or obsolete.
Excluding active military ranges and ocean ranges, the U.S. has as many
as 10 million acres of former military land ranges, containing tens or even
hundreds of millions of live ordnance items. Some, such as “inert” practice
rounds, could barely dent a bulldozer. Others, from 2,000-pound aerial
bombs to artillery rounds containing aging mustard agent, are potentially
deadly. It’s remarkable, in fact, that the number of civilian fatalities from
such weapons since World War II—at least as reported by government
agencies—is counted in the dozens.
Despite all the sensitivity today to “weapons of mass destruction,”
very few people recognize that all of the major powers stockpiled huge
quantities of chemical weapons during World War II. After all, chemical
munitions—similar to those tested at the American University Experimental
Station—were used in the trenches of the Western Front during World War
I. Miraculously, the advanced lethal chemical munitions of World War II
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Foreword xix
never made it into battle, but they have not disappeared. Most were buried
on land or dumped at sea. Tens of thousands of small chemical agent iden-
tifi cation sets, designed to train troops to recognize the smell of chemi-
cal weapons, were presumably disposed of at military bases throughout
the U.S., using the technology of the time: land burial, without lasting
documentation.
The challenge of protecting the American people from our own weap-
ons is formidable, but possible. Three things are necessary to address the
little known but persistent risks of public encounters with old munitions
and chemical warfare materiel: knowledge, will, and resources.
Knowledge. The records of U.S. military activities during the two world
wars were incomplete and many have disappeared. That’s understandable:
Fighting a great war, it was hard to conceive of unknown environmental
impacts decades in the future. Furthermore, none of people who partici-
pated in the World War I mobilization are still alive, to tell their stories.
Still, it is possible for environmental sleuths like Rich Albright to guide
current investigations using old records, aerial photos, and knowledge of
how research, testing, and training were conducted.
The Will. While many people in the Defense Department, environmen-
tal agencies, and Congress recognize the hazards posed by old munitions,
others view the risks as relatively insignifi cant. It took a scary news story—
the explosive death of two boys on a San Diego cul-de-sac in 1983—to
start the Army Corps’ programs to investigate formerly used ranges. It
took the report of arsenic at the American University children’s center to
attract a crowd to Sibley hospital. We all know what it takes to get a stop
sign installed at a busy intersection. Unfortunately, the crisis mentality
only gets specifi c hazards addressed. Unless overall funding is increased,
resources are diverted from other important projects.
Resources. The Defense Department’s Formerly Used Defense Sites pro-
gram has always been the poor stepchild among the U.S. military’s environ-
mental programs, even though it is responsible for sites, like Spring Valley,
where Americans are living, working, playing, and going to school. In its
most recent annual environmental report, the Pentagon reported that muni-
tions response is required, or may be required, at nearly 1200 former mili-
tary facilities. Chances are that there are many sites that have not yet made
it into the database. That same report estimates that the cost to complete
munitions response (the cleanup up of live explosives, chemical warfare
materiel, and related wastes) at those sites will total nearly $13 billion.
What’s the annual budget for munitions response at Formerly Used
Defense Sites? Usually about $90 million per year. At that rate, it will take
145 years to make land acceptably, but not completely safe.
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xx Foreword
Until the Defense Department and Congress budget adequate funds for
timely response, the country must rely upon a handful of activists and
environmental regulators to demands that the hazards be addressed. More
pressure is necessary if the level of effort—higher at Spring Valley than
most other sites—is to be expanded to match the risks. Otherwise, as more
Americans come into contact with the legacy of preparations for past wars,
people will be asking why we didn’t take action when we fi rst recognized
the danger.
Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
January 2008
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Preface
When the District of Columbia started cleaning up the fi rst of 27 ord-
nance ranges, the project seemed simple. We had a small National Guard
training facility with mortar and small arms ranges. Because the impact
area was in a public park, we had to clean up the unexploded ordnance
(UXO) immediately. It seemed like metal detectors and shovels would
solve the problem in short order.
Suddenly, we had liquid fi lled (chemical) shells being detonated on-site
near a hospital. We had to fi nd a truckload of buried ammunition. We had
arsenic in the groundwater and lead in the soil. We had buried leftover
poison gas used on the bonus marchers (Adamsite actually killed the preg-
nant wife of one of the veterans) and we had the potential of buried poison
gas grenades stockpiled for the civil rights marchers. We had a buried
Sherman tank. We had a “whites only” swimming pool buried so that black
guardsman could not swim in it after integration (no pool, no integration).
The pool was reportedly fi lled with barrels of waste oil, solvent, and paint.
We had a 20-foot long auger, blown out of a monitoring well hole when
it struck an explosive or ordnance item. We had a contractor and the
Corps of Engineers Project Manager almost coming to blows in a public
meeting over whether they had found four or fi ve Livens drums (a large
World War I chemical mortar shell). The previous Army Corps of Engi-
neers Project Manager resigned and entered a seminary hopefully fi nding
a life without lying about the gas shells. Did I mention polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs)?
The only thing we did not have was a secret society guarding fi rst-
century documents. But at least we had buried treasure—a railroad car full
of bronze cannons and swords given to us by the French government after
World War I, supposedly buried when the site was closed.
With all these surprises at a benign National Guard Training Facility,
what could be in store for local citizens or a state government trying to
clean up a large military installation? I was soon to fi nd out when I tackled
my next site, what was once the American University Experiment Station
(AUES), and which is today the neighborhood of Spring Valley, which by
most accounts is now the worst Department of Defense weapons dumpsite
in the country.
There are approximately 25.1 million land acres and about 161 million
water acres of ranges in this country. Estimates of the extent of military
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xxii Preface
ranges varies greatly. As Lee Davidson reported in 2004 (“Military Lacks
Data about Test Ranges,” Desert Morning News, July 2, 2004.),
The General Accounting Offi ce (GAO) said different arms of
the military used different criteria, assumptions and methods in
their inventories, which ‘raise questions about the reliability’ of
comparisons and cost estimates made using them.
It said the Pentagon reported 10,444 operational ranges cov-
ering 24.6 million acres nationally in a 2003 inventory. But a
2004 inventory listed 353 range complexes and 172 individual
ranges on 26 million acres worldwide.
Sometimes the same arm of the military reported different
numbers in separate inventories for the same ranges, it said.
For example, one inventory said the Marine’s Camp Lejeune,
NC, has 95,872 acres of rangeland, while a more recent inventory
says it has 152,000 acres, even though the entire installation
covers 153,000 acres.
Another example is that the Marine’s Camp Pendleton, CA, was listed
having 39,084 acres of range in one inventory, and 114,000 acres in a more
recent one—a threefold increase.
I wrote this book as a guide for those who are trying to clean up these
ranges, whether they are experienced environmental scientists, Explosive
and Ordnance Demolition (EOD) personnel, or the farmers next door.
Because of the surprises I encountered at the National Guard facility, I also
included many experimental compounds more likely to exist only at a few
experimental sites like university research laboratories, Fort Dietrich, MD,
Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD, Porton Downs, UK, or Lakehurst, NJ.
Although at the start of World War I and World War II we were so seri-
ously behind in the arms race, any of the poison gases or explosives listed
herein could have been tested at any range.
It is my intention that this book will also provide a valuable reference
tool for those charged with protecting us against dangerous chemicals and
explosives in the fi ght against terrorism. One of the reasons that the Chem-
ical Weapons Ban Treaty only included an odd half-dozen compounds is
because many substances listed in this book as effective chemical weapons
are also used in industrial and agricultural operations. Many are avail-
able for sale to terrorists over the Internet. Terrorists in Iraq are now using
chlorine, a common drinking water disinfectant, as a poison gas with
tragic results. That same gas sits unguarded on railroad sidings near many
American cities.
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Preface xxiii
The book will be useful to fi rst responders and elected offi cials because
many of these lesser-known chemical weapons are manufactured, used, and
shipped in large quantities through their respective populated areas. Scarcely
a month goes by in which a train or truck wreck does not release some dan-
gerous chemical. If a spilled chemical is listed in this book as a poison gas, it
may guide the offi cial accident response in a more protective fashion. Trans-
portation placards only tell part of the story. Even industry offi cials may also
be ignorant of the origin and danger of some materials. Proper planning and
legislative actions require knowledge of the nature of the problem.
Did you know that nicotine was tested as a poison gas by the military?
Indeed, the lead compound added to gasoline for many years—now an
environmental disaster—started out as an experimental chemical weapon.
That same lead compound has impacted the lives of tens of thousands of
inner-city kids and environmentally damaged millions of urban and rural
acres along highways. Perhaps elected offi cials would have asked for more
study if they knew that a chemical weapon was being added to gasoline.
Did you know that a substance originally used in pet fl ea collars and the
fl y killer once dangling in the nursery is a “sarin-like” nerve gas? Indeed,
the fl ea collar that your kids rubbed when they petted the family dog was
once blamed by the military as the cause of the Persian Gulf Syndrome
because the soldiers also wore fl ea collars. Therefore, this book may be
useful to government regulators when deciding whether or not to approve
a new pesticide, food additive, fertilizer, or other substance.
For all these reasons, I wrote this book.
Richard D. Albright
Grasonville, MD
January 2008
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Acknowledgments
WITH THE HELP OF OTHERS
Many people contributed to my success with the American University
Experiment Station (AUES), or Spring Valley, and thereby indirectly to
this book. This list is in a time sequence of some of the main players.
Don Campbell was the fi rst. Don is an industrial hygienist, with a mas-
ter’s degree, very experienced in health and safety and author of several
works on the subject. He was always there for me to vet the ideas in the
fi rst report on Spring Valley. Don and I shared an offi ce with the sign dumb
and dumber over the door. Colleagues would ask who was who? To which
we answered that we were too dumb to fi gure it out. The question was
fi nally answered when Don got a good paying federal job. Nicholas Kauffman
also provided valuable insight over the years.
After fi nishing my fi rst report, I met informally with the Corps of Engi-
neers. I suggested that the Spring Valley site would have had a dump for an
operation with 1900 people. I reasoned that every time a high school chem-
istry class met, someone broke a piece of glassware, i.e. a test tube, thistle
tube, etc. 1200 chemists must have broken a lot of stuff. At this meeting,
Mark Baker, the Corps’ historian said that they had a picture of a dumpsite.
The Army eventually sent me a copy of the photo. If it hadn’t been for
Mark Baker’s admission, the Corps probably wouldn’t have reopened the
investigation. A photo, it turns out is worth 12,000,000 dollars a year, the
current American University Experiment Station (AUES) cleanup budget.
The photo it turns out was part of a collection supplied by Eric Olsen
from the Natural Resource Defense Council. After reading about Spring
Valley, he remembered that his aunt had photos in the attic taken by his
ancestor, Sgt. Maurer, who worked at the AUES. He gave copies of the
photos to the Army, but they did nothing to try and locate the pit or any-
thing else shown in the photos, including cases of Stokes mortar shells.
Eric Olsen turns out to be the real hero in the Spring Valley saga. His con-
tribution was the lodestar that led to the reopening of the site.
Dr. Harvey Sloan was head of the District of Columbia Department of
Health at this time. He quickly appreciated the hazards to human health
evident in my fi rst report. He arranged for a full-blown meeting with EPA
and the Corps together with the acting city administrator, Michael Rodgers,
and various deputy mayors. I presented my fi ndings and the EPA and the
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xxvi Acknowledgments
Corps promised to respond. Eventually, the Corps agreed to try and fi nd
the burial site shown in Eric’s photo.
As soon as the Corps started digging up pits of shells and bottles of
chemical warfare material adjacent to American University, the North-
west Current, a local newspaper, became involved with the story. Charlie
Bermpohl, a highly experienced reporter, realized the signifi cance of the
story. Over the years, he provided a number of key documents, which he
obtained through his own research including the Bancroft report and a
report on the fi ring of chloropicrin shells. His editor, Davis Kennedy, was
also very supportive.
During the fi rst digging event, Harry Jaffe, a writer for the Washing-
tonian magazine also did a story on the effort. He discovered a child day
care center nearby. I ordered the Corps to test the soil there and we found
very high arsenic levels, which led to the evacuation of the day care cen-
ter while we investigated further. Harry Jaffe’s observations prevented
children coming into contact with high levels of arsenic and likely pre-
vented some illnesses.
Sometime in the midst of all of this development, Ken Shuster from EPA
contacted me. He worked in a department that was getting into military
munitions issues. He read my fi rst report on Spring Valley. His encourage-
ment and insight over the next 10 years was invaluable. Particularly, his
experience with other sites around the country provided a backdrop for
my theories.
Dr. Hung Trong was a geologist with the DC Environmental Regulation
Administration. When I fi rst obtained the 1927 and 1936 aerial photo-
graphs and thought I saw burial evidence, it was Trong who confi rmed that
but suggested fi nding a specialist with a remote sensing background. He
suggested the George Washington University geography department. The
next day Trong left because he was fl own half way around the world to
present a paper at an international scientifi c gathering. Soon after, Trong
left the agency, never knowing the contribution he had made to the Spring
Valley search for truth.
Trong worked for Jim Collier, head of a bureau within my agency. He
was an ex-Army-ranger and was intrigued with my efforts. He provided
important support for my efforts along with my own boss at that time,
Angelo Tompros. The head of our agency was Ferial Bishop, an executive
loaned from EPA. She hired me and understood the importance of a mili-
tary site cleanup program.
George Washington University provided the fi rst confi rmation to me of
the value of aerial photographs. A geography professor, it turns out, was
the former head of the Department of State’s Photographic Interpretation
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Acknowledgments xxvii
Center. He confi rmed the likelihood of ground disturbances in the aerials.
He in turn suggested an expert in environmental photo interpretation.
Enter stage right, Terry Slonecker, a remote sensing scientist with
EPA’s Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center. His credits are
legion on the AUES project. Many of the discoveries, which I developed,
were located or confi rmed by Terry and many of the observations by
Terry turned out to be important discoveries after I forced the Corps to
explore them. Many stories will be told about Terry in this book. Perhaps
his greatest contribution was putting the Sgt. Maurer pit next door to the
Korean Ambassador’s house. After the Corps excavated the two pits on
the Korean property, it became apparent to me that they did not recover
glass carboys or enough shards to represent 30 or 40 jugs. Nevertheless,
they were ready to close out the project until Terry placed the pit next
door.
At this point, Maj. Plaisted, the Corps’ project manager for the site,
came up with the idea to dig test pits with a backhoe, since we were look-
ing for glass jugs which we could not fi nd with a metal detector. As my
luck would have it, the fi rst pit turned up some test tubes. After digging
a couple of dozen pits with no other discoveries, they dug the area where
they started and found 380 shells and 30 bottles, 12 with Lewisite and 8
with mustard. Still they didn’t fi nd the carboys. But they did fi nd a row of
55 gallon drums leading under the house.
Later on, Terry, along with Greg Nielson from the Corps, discovered the
cement Livens Gun trough on a fi eld excursion. My only claim was that
I was able to identify it. Terry didn’t know at the time how important the
structure was to future efforts. I had long maintained that the AUES had
ballistically fi red poison gas shells. After Mark and Terry returned from
the Chemical Service archives with pictures of a chemical mortar test fi r-
ing a gas shell from the Livens Gun Trough, it became necessary to draw
a range fan to locate potential unexploded mortar shells in people’s yards.
Since the Trough was the beginning point and the direction of the mortar
tubes was fi xed, it was easy to graph the direction. We already knew the
range, hence the probable shell impact area was easy to determine.
Kent Slowinski, a local landscape architect, grew up in Spring Val-
ley. Holding a masters degree from the University of Maryland, he was
quick to appreciate that those who work in the soil in Spring Valley would
be at the greatest risk. He has spent countless years researching the ill-
nesses among his childhood friends, the anecdotal shell discoveries and
the archives records. He and Geza were at the archives when they discov-
ered the map of the AUES buildings, a key document which added to our
knowledge base about the scope and activities of the AUES.
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