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Environmental Clean Up Begins At Ft. Detrick

Reported by: Roosevelt Leftwich
Last Update: 7/06/2009 7:58 pm
Since 1946, a whole lot of nastiness has been buried under ground in the 14 acres that make up Fort Detrick's Area B.

Primarily it's been heavy solvents but barrels of military grade chemical waste were also found in this one time test area.

The state says the best way to deal with this is to literally cover it up.

All this dirt and fill will be put on top of a water proof membrane designed to keep runoff from leaching into well water.

Senator Ben Cardin toured the site that was put on the Super Fund list a few months ago.

He says it’s a start.

'There's a lot of damage that's been done and we have the right remedial plan in place now it's on the national priority list we will have the right monitor agencies making the types of decisions.' Cardin says.

More than 30 wells dot the property as the Army and the Environmental Protection Agency monitor the flow of ground water to see if there is any leak of contaminates into the water.

'What no body can rule out right now is contamination of ground water we're looking at Frederick County Fredrick City's water supply being in jeopardy...that's what we're talking about.'  Attorney Barry Kissin says.

Kissin, who sits on the citizen’s board keeping an eye on the clean up says the remediation doesn't go far enough.

He says the Army and the state both knew back in the 1970's that that solvents and even bacteria were leaking into ground water.

Kissin says there is a need to reevaluate.

'They're doing remediation in place because they just can't a begin to afford to deal with the situation where there are live germs and the life germs aren't discovered until 2002 but the problem at area B is first taken notice of back in the 70's they didn't do any remediation at all until 2001.'  He says.

Kissin says this is part of a larger problem.

He says the military has an obligation to protect Americans, in their own backyards.

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