This is the final story of a seven-part series investigating World War I-era chemical weapons and equipment buried under AU’s campus and in the Spring Valley neighborhood.
In a photograph dated 1918, a World War I Army sergeant stands over a row of ceramic jugs and wooden barrels, lined up near a gaping hole in the ground.
“The bottles are full of mustard, to be destroyed here. In Death Valley. The hole called Hades,” the back of the photo reads.
The chemical burial pit known as “Hades” is approximately located at the now AU-owned 4825 Glenbrook Rd., and the Army Corps’ investigation has removed hundreds of munitions and chemical containers from this pit.
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But spare munitions and smaller pits are close by, at the president’s residence next door, 4835 Glenbrook Rd., which is just behind the Watkins Building.
Both the 4825 and 4835 Glenbrook Rd. properties are now owned by AU and have been sites of frequent Army Corps investigations.
Spring Valley resident Rick Feeney lived at 4835 Glenbrook Rd. before it was the AU president’s house.
In the summer of 1992, Feeney was cutting his grass when he noticed his dog yelping in the new pit construction workers had dug near his home. Liquid was coming from the dog’s eyes, and as Feeney got closer to the pit, his skin began to burn, according to a report by Washingtonian writer Harry Jaffe. Feeney told Jaffe that he felt like he had been hit with a toxic gas.
The construction was completed and the ground covered up, but Feeney’s eyes would always water every time he cut his grass. Feeney moved out, and AU later bought the property for former AU president Benjamin Ladner’s use.
In 1996, a landscaper was removing dirt to plant a tree at 4835 Glenbrook Rd. when smoke started pouring out of the hole he had dug. As his face began to swell, his coworkers rushed him to a hospital emergency room, according to an account in the Northwest Current.
The landscaper survived, but he was one of several with long-lasting health problems caused by construction work in Spring Valley.
The president’s residence has been the site of several of the Army Corps’ test pits and arsenic grids, requiring one- to two-foot-deep chunks of grass and dirt to be excavated.
Current AU President Neil Kerwin and his wife Ann were temporarily evacuated from 4835 Glenbrook Rd. as the Army Corps searched for munitions, The Eagle reported in 2009.
They relocated to their home in Bethesda, Md., in 2007, then moved back to the Glenbrook Road residence in 2009. Feeling the aftereffects for 20 years AU’s administration has had to deal with the consequences of the Army Corps cleanup for nearly 20 years.
AU filed a claim against the Army in 2001, seeking $86.6 million in damages resulting from the Army Corps’ chemical warfare investigations, but the case was ultimately dismissed.
In 2009, Kerwin testified at a Congressional subcommittee hearing on the University’s view of the Spring Valley issue.
“The University has endured years of dislocation, suspended operations, business interruption, un-reimbursed costs in the millions of dollars and periodic safety concerns as the Army Corps has conducted its multi-year effort,” Kerwin said, according to congressional records.
In 1994, the Environmental Protection Agency collected soil samples at 4825 Glenbrook Rd., which was unoccupied and owned by the developer at the time. One of the samples revealed high levels of arsenic.
The home was put on the market and subsequently bought by the Loughlin family. The developer told the family a non-toxic chemical called Silvex had been found on their property. Silvex is an herbicide that has been banned in the U.S. since the 1980s.
The family had a lab test the soil, but no abnormalities were found. They didn’t find out about the EPA’s arsenic tests until the Army Corps told them five years later. Next door to the Loughlins, the Army Corps had just discovered live bombs and chemical weapons in the garden of the Korean embassy.
"I am so cynical, but they say it's OK for us to be here," Kathi Loughlin told the Baltimore Sun in 1999. "What about kids playing in that area and making mud pies and eating dirt?”
After several years in their Spring Valley home, Kathi Loughlin developed a brain tumor, and her children had skin rashes their pediatrician couldn’t explain, Jaffe wrote.
The Loughlins moved out, and the home was sold back to the developer. The Loughlin family was one of hundreds in the Spring Valley area that suffered from health problems.
A yearlong health study conducted by the Northwest Current in 2004 found that residents living in 161 out of Spring Valley’s 345 homes had diseases that may be linked to the chemical weapons tested at AU. The health issues ranged from breast cancer and leukemia to bipolar disorder and dyslexia.
Former president George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara were both diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease after living in the area in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mustard gas and lewisite, two chemical weapons tested at AU during World War I, can cause autoimmune disorders, according to a 1993 report by the National Institutes of Health. Autoimmune disorders occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue.
AU’s next steps AU Chief of Staff David Taylor said the University’s next actions all depend on the Army Corps’ progress.
“The Army Corps' work involves many unknowns,” he said. “New information evolves as the investigation unfolds and we learn as much as we can about each circumstance.”
AU may allow the unoccupied 4825 Glenbrook Rd. house to be torn down for a more thorough investigation of chemical and munitions burial pits, which may extend under the house, The Eagle reported in September. Future cleanup at the site may require the Kerwins to move out of their home and relocate again.
Though the Army Corps has removed and destroyed hundreds of Spring Valley munitions, it is still unclear how many may be left on the Glenbrook Road properties.
“We can’t 100 percent say that we’re done,” Army Corps Historian Mark Baker said. “Based on the work we’ve completed, we’re done, but if something pops up five years from now, we’re going to go back.”
The Army Corps held a routine meeting with the Spring Valley community April 12 to discuss its cleanup efforts.
Along with a PowerPoint presentation, the Army Corps distributed a list of ground rules for their meetings.
In it, the Army Corps made a promise to Spring Valley and the AU community:
“No surprises or secrets.”
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