All,
Listen to the hearing below:
Please find below and in this link my testimony from the hearing:
Testimony for Joint Public Oversight Roundtable on Public Safety Plan for the Destruction of Spring Valley Munitions
Good morning Council members. My name is Michael Ginsberg, and while I am not an expert on munitions disposal safety procedures, I have been engaged in research on the history of the American University Experiment Station and the remediation process. In effect, I have come to represent an important and repeatedly neglected party affected by the Spring Valley remediation, students at American University.
The current safety protocols being discussed must be implemented with proper vigilance, and viewed in the context of a history of negligent decision-making. In my research I have come across misjudgments in the history of the Spring Valley cleanup made by the Army Corp of Engineers. For instance, after conducting historical research in 1986 the Army determined that there was no official evidence of chemical weapons burial. Again in 1994, after conducting soil sampling at American University, Lieutenant Colonel Crotteau declared that “there were no chemical warfare agents, explosives or their breakdown products…present in the soil samples collected. Therefore no further action is necessary.” Even this year in February, the Army concluded to the Restoration Advisory Board that perchlorate in the groundwater was decreasing in concentration despite testing inconsistencies and limited data.
Just as has happened in the past and still happens today, the Army neglects to mention critical information when presenting its conclusions not only to the general public but also to its oversight board. My point is that while the stakes were not high enough to necessitate the transport of the munitions to a military base, the stakes are still high enough, the risk to human health in the area still prevalent, to require a clear and well-communicated safety plan.
This brings me to my second point. The level of awareness amongst the AU student body on these issues is astoundingly low. In my opinion the cause can be attributed both to a lack of interest and a lack of accessibility to the information. Regardless, a clear and direct channel of information must be established between the D.C. Council and the AU community on the issue of the public safety plan for the destruction of munitions and any upcoming topics, or ignorance will prevail. An open forum should be held on AU’s campus once a public safety plan has been developed to allow the community to be informed and ask questions. Such an open forum on remediation related issues should be held, at minimum, annually to facilitate transparency and community awareness and involvement.
Any sensible individual who learns of the remediation and potential health risks will be concerned and seek out ways to learn more. As an AU student I did not know that AU was the site of the first chemical testing center in the U.S. until well into my second year, and was not informed of the full extent of the issues until my senior year.
To sum up my points, if information is not regularly and clearly communicated, the AU community, which comprises a significant percentage of Spring Valley’s population, will remain ignorant. Furthermore, it is time for the AU administration to cease to be the middleman in the AU community’s relations with the D.C. Council and USACE. We are effected parties and deserve to be properly informed and updated. We live in Spring Valley just as much as anyone else and the potential health consequences from these munitions will impact us just as much as anyone else. Thank you for your time and consideration.
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https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B_eFN_tpckNUZTBhMDRkMjEtOGU4Yy00YTc1LWExNmYtZWIzMGU0YWJkNzlj&hl=en
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