Chemical Dump Lurks Under a D.C. Neighborhood

May 15, 2010 - Greg Nielson pushed a joystick, and a video camera zoomed in on three men in moon suits and gas masks as they prepared to blow up a weapon of mass destruction less than five miles from the White House.

Later, the crew slid the rusting World War I artillery shell into a small steel vault and sealed the door. They detonated a shaped explosive charge to cut the projectile open, and pumped in reagent to neutralize its contents: liquid mustard, an infamous chemical warfare agent.

The process is “as safe as sliced bread,” said Nielson, the operation leader, at a control panel in a nearby trailer. “Maybe safer.”

The destruction of five poison-filled shells and 20 other suspect items ended in early May. But the saga of America’s most unusual hazardous waste site is far from over.

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EPA to Big Oil: Clean Up D.C. Neighborhood!

September 3, 2003 - Chevron’s got some cleaning-up to do in the city’s Lamond-Riggs neighborhood, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency released an order yesterday requiring the oil giant to take several steps to remediate a contaminated gas plume that leaked over time from a Chevron station in Chillium, Md., across the District line this quiet neighborhood in Northeast.

What can a gas plume do to a nice neighborhood like this? Well, in the words of the EPA, the threat is something called “subsurface vapor intrusion,” a term that figures big in a big EPA document on the mess.

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