Reminder: Norton Spring Valley Town Hall Meeting on October 6th

Reminder

Norton Spring Valley Town Hall Meeting to Hear From Officials and Residents on Munitions Clean-Up

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that at the request of Spring Valley residents, the Congresswoman's promised Spring Valley Town Hall Meetinghas been re-scheduled to Oct. 6, 6-8 p.m., American University, Mary Graydon Center, Rm. 5, at 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW. The neighborhood town hall meeting will offer Spring Valley residents a forum to question top officials of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, following discovery of small trace amounts of toxic mustard there last month by Corps workers, responsible for clean-up of the World War I testing site. Norton visited several sites of concern in the Spring Valley community and questioned Corps officials about the recent discovery. The town hall meeting will include the first public appearance by the new commander managing the Spring Valley Weapons Clean-Up, Col. David Anderson. Residents also will hear from Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh; Environmental Protection Agency Senior State and Congressional Liaison Shawn M. Garvin; John Tesner, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army; and Alex R. Bako, Associate Director, DDOE.

The Congresswoman earlier this summer held another hearing on the decades-long clean-up of the site. She said her meeting with residents this month will ensure transparency and improve relations between the community and the Corps, which will continue its work there for years to come. Norton said, "The official House hearing was imperative to ensure that the Corps will not leave until the work is done. Even then, the Spring Valley site will need perpetual monitoring, considering the decades that passed before the first discovery of buried munitions. The discovery of traces of mustard during Corps digging re-enforces the need for the commitment we got from the Corps at the hearing to make greater transparency mandatory."