Norton Announces Hearing on Army Corps Claim that Spring Valley Is Clean on Chemicals (5/7/09)

Norton Announces Hearing on Army Corps Claim that Spring Valley is Clean of Chemical Weapons

May 7, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C - At the request of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Issues and the District of Columbia will hold a hearing on Wednesday, June 3, Rayburn House Office Building, room 2237, 2 p.m., on the proposal of the Army Corps of Engineers to conclude its cleanup of chemical weapons, unexploded ordinances and other chemicals in Spring Valley, a Formerly Used Defense (FUD) site in Northwest, a neighborhood in the District. The Congresswoman has worked with the residents of Spring Valley, the Army Corps, and the Department of Defense (DOD) on the cleanup for more than fifteen years. The Army Corps proposes to destroy the chemical weapons and to declare the FUD site completely cleaned within the next two years, but Congress has not been consulted. "No information has been submitted to the public or Congress concerning how the Corps has ascertained that the entire site is clear, safe, and without residual health effects." Norton said, "The Army Corps left this site before, only to return when more munitions were discovered by accident." The Congresswoman said that, because Spring Valley is the only FUD site in a U.S. residential community, the Corps should not cease its activities without congressional oversight and the appropriate assurance that this area is free of contamination.