Success Results from Hard Work and Providence

1 Success Results from Hard Work and Providence 

This section underscores the success that can be obtained through hard work even though a state may have little first-hand experience with a complex military site. It should provide encouragement to residents, stakeholders, and regulators. 

One of these two sites was believed to be the site where many jugs of mustard were lined up for disposal in the Sgt. Maurer photo (Photo 19 in the center photo section). However, as it turned out neither of the sites was the Sgt. Maurer pit because carboys were not found, nor were sufficient remnants of the carboys. They were dumpsites or ordnance and chemical burial sites. Cylindrical objects were visualized on the ground penetrating radar at one pit. 

It should be noted that both of the former residents of this property died of cancer and all the children had severe skin problems, which cleared up mysteriously when they went away to college. One of the kids had to be tied down at night so he would not scratch his skin irritation. Because of these reports, the District of Columbia requested arsenic samples on the surface of the property and levels as high as 1000 ppm were found. That result forced the Corps to sample all of the properties in Operational Unit 3 (OU-3), about 60 houses in total. Findings of several other properties with elevated arsenic ultimately led to the Corps acceptance of one of the recommendations made in the District of Columbia s first report, which was to test everywhere for arsenic. The author would not have recommended sampling all 1400 lots for arsenic if there wasn t historic evidence to support it. The author attached 155 pages of historical documents to that first report culled from about 3000 pages that were read. 

In all, about 250 shells and about 175 bottles were removed from the two pits. Many of the shells had presumably already leaked and some were no doubt empty when they were thrown into the hole. It appeared that the burials were somewhat segregated as many of the bottles in one pit contained bromine compounds. 

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