Excavation of World War I munitions at the university president's house at 4825 Glenbrook Road will begin sometime this fall and will prevent President-elect Neil Kerwin from residing there for at least the duration of the project, according to David Taylor, the president's chief of staff.
"The project is going to be such a nuisance that it won't be feasible" for Kerwin to live there, Taylor said.
The munitions, left behind from when the Army Corps of Engineers used AU and the surrounding area to test chemical weapons during World War I, are located in an area known as "Pit 3" on the right side of the house if viewed from the road.
Operations are scheduled to begin Oct. 22, according to Gary Schilling, Spring Valley program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District.
However, Taylor said there is no firm date scheduled.
"These hard and fast timelines have a tendency to slip," he said.
Work at Pit 3 has been delayed by about three months by university concerns, according to Schilling.
All operations will be contained inside an engineered control structure, which consists of "a modular aluminum containment structure for fragmentation control and a vapor containment cover to control any release of chemical warfare material," according to the July 2007 issue of "The Corps'ondent," a publication written by the Army Corps of Engineers to inform area residents about the Spring Valley cleanup.
AU officials were concerned that the aluminum walls were not thick enough.
"The main issue was that technical representatives from American University had expressed a desire for thicker aluminum walls on the engineered control structure that would protect workers and residents in the event of an actual detonation of a munition," Schilling said in an e-mail. "The Army increased the thickness of the walls, even though the original design was technically capable of providing more than adequate blast protection."
Taylor confirmed the concerns about wall thickness.
He also said there was an "ongoing conversation back and forth" between the university and the Army Corps about several issues, including an alert system in case anything went wrong at the dig and additional education and training for university officials.
"We want to figure out what it is they intend to do to ensure the safety of campus and the surrounding neighborhood," he said.
Pit 3 is the final of four known munitions disposal grounds to be excavated, according to the Army Corps of Engineers' Web site. Schilling said Pit 3 is the last to be excavated because it was discovered last.
In addition to the excavation of Pit 3, "test pitting," or digging a series of small holes to search for additional munitions burial pits, will occur at other sites at the president's house and at 4835 Glenbrook Road, a university-owned house that is currently vacant, according to Taylor.
Additionally, low-levels of mustard agent breakdown were discovered in the soil near the back of the driveway at 4825 Glenbrook Road, which is not part of the Pit 3 excavation, according to Schilling, but further tests conducted June 28 showed no mustard agent breakdown.
No additional soil or gas sampling tests have been conducted at 4825 Glenbrook Road since the June 28 test because current Corps of Engineers efforts "are focused on the upcoming investigation of Pit 3" and the test pitting, Schilling said in an e-mail.
The work at the president's house is part of a "long chain" of Army Corps work at and around the university that began in 1993, according to Taylor.
In 2001, 160 barrels of soil were removed from the university, The Eagle previously reported. No chemical weapons were found in the soil, but it was tested for arsenic, a chemical that occurs when mustard gas decomposes.
Soil on intramural athletic fields behind the Watkins building and Child Development Center was removed beginning in 2003 due to high levels of arsenic, and a new AstroTurf field was completed in 2005, according to reports from The Eagle.
Work by the Army Corps of Engineers was stopped twice during that time due to budget shortfalls. Once the Corps waited until the next fiscal year and resumed excavation; the second time the university gave the Corps $10 million to complete its work, The Eagle previously reported.
Most recently, in November 2006, high levels of arsenic were discovered in soil between the Hamilton and Kreeger buildings, The Eagle previously reported. The area was excavated during winter break.
