Political Quotes

“More than 25 years ago, the Congress charged the Defense Department to identify and then to clean up and remediate properties which the department had owned or leased in order to test chemical munitions. Congress did so because these munitions had left hazardous substances related to the work of the department. There are more than 2,000 such sites in nearly every State, all the Territories and in the District of Columbia. My concern is with those sites in congested residential parts of our country where there may be dense populations located by formerly used defense sites. A classic case and perhaps the most important--but I'm sure not the only one--was the World War I chemical weapons site for the United States of America. It happened to have been right here in Northwest Washington, DC, in a portion of what is now American University and its surrounding neighborhood known as Spring Valley. The Army is making good on its duty to clean up these formerly used defense sites (FUDS), including the site in the District of Columbia, but we have no information on the health effects of these leftover chemical munitions. They have been found in people's back and front yards. They have been found, at least here, in people's gardens. Entire houses and garages, as it turns out, unknowingly were built on this debris. The site here in the District of Columbia was found by accident by a utility contractor digging into a trench. The neighborhood had no knowledge.…”