Cleanup of the former U.S. Army’s chemical weapons testing continues around American University’s campus as the United States Army Corps of Engineers this fall began landscaping and restoration plans, and is expected to submit a final comprehensive report in November.
In June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers discovered four munitions underneath the former AU Public Safety Building, which was demolished in 2017. By July, the site was demobilized and cleaned up.
Dan Noble, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said it’s difficult to find precise details of exactly what was buried and where they could be found.
“While the military keeps a lot of records, they don’t always keep records about the stuff you would like them to,” Noble said.
During the height of the first World War, American University’s campus housed weapons manufacturing and testing. The War Department, now known as the Department of Defense, directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Civilian Bureau of Mines to run Camp Leach, a program focused on the development of chemical weapons.
Camp Leach is sometimes referred to as the Manhattan Project of WWI. At its height, the program supported over 2,000 soldiers, scientists and civilians on AU’s campus.
Here, the U.S. Army manufactured chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard gas and arsenic bombs. These weapons were often fired from East Campus to the Dalecarlia Reservoir, which program members nicknamed Death Valley.
When the armistice was signed in November 1918 between Germany and the Allied countries, the War Department ordered the area be demobilized.
However, in January 1993, excavators found a plethora of munitions under houses in the Spring Valley neighborhood behind campus. Underneath the houses were four unexploded mortar rounds with their fuses still intact.
This kicked off a cleanup effort by the U.S. Army, which ended in the removal of 141 items — 43 of which contained traces of chemical agents. The remedial project was closed in 1995.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers returned to Spring Valley in 1998 to investigate potential sites of buried weapons on the residence of the Ambassador of South Korea. Two pits were found and tests on soil samples revealed arsenic contamination. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the clean up of the residence between 1999 and 2000.
Two other burial pits were found on property owned by the University, one at 4825 Glenbrook Rd. NW and the other at 4835 Glenbrook Rd. NW. After discovery of these pits in 1998, a remediation effort ensued which finally concluded in August 2021.
Noble said the cleanup continues as some mistakes were made in the initial cleanup effort in 1993, and as more material has been found as recently as June 2024.
“The city of D.C. felt like, you know, now we think, a little bit more needs to be done… a little bit more effort really needs to occur here,” Noble said.
However, despite its many challenges, Noble is hopeful that over a century since Camp Leach’s inception, the end of the cleanup project is in sight.
“We do believe, after all this time, we’re near the end of the process,” Noble said. “In the next one to five years would be my time frame.”
This article was edited by Samantha Skolnick, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Ella Rousseau. Fact checking done by Luna Jinks and Hannah Paisley Zoulek.
