you also need to start looking at the effects on women during their childbearing years, so the fetal monitoring comes in.

Let me just end with this. I have seen the same situation happen throughout the world when we have abandoned bases. I just came back from Bermuda where we abandoned our naval base there. We abandon and leave it like it is when we leave. We don't treat it. And I would think that we need to go the next step, too, and look at all of our abandoned bases and set up a protocol of plan. It is affecting the population there.

So here I would like to see, when you finish your scientific discussion and you identify what the contaminants are, and you are able to trace some effects, that we set up a treatment modality also. I always hear about the testing, but I don't hear about the followup. And so I would suggest that in the District of Columbia, that your concerns and I want to compliment the Mayor, but I think your concerns ought to be out there, and there ought to be recommendations to other departments, and please identify what you see as a treatment modality for those who have been exposed. Dr. WALKS. If you'll permit me just to expand on one thing that I'm confident, that you were alluding to.

Ms. WATSON. Please.

Dr. WALKS. This goes beyond letting people know if they have been exposed to a chemical that may burn their skin or injure their lungs or may cause cancer. There is a psychological component which is absolutely included in a comprehensive health approach to people who feel that their community is not safe, their home is not safe, their children can't play outside in the yard. And we are absolutely focusing on that as well, and I want to thank you for bringing up that comprehensive approach, because with the District's Department of Health, we have moved out of our offices. We are out in the community. We have taken experts to the community to answer questions for individuals. We will continue to do so and I appreciate your support in that effort.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Watson.

I'd like to ask Dr. Walker, as chair of the Mayor's Scientific Panel on Spring Valley, I'd like to ask you what the status is of each of the recommendations that the scientific panel made. I do not notice any timeframes, but I trust from what we know and what we have learned that there is urgency in implementing the recommendations.

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. The recommendation for biomonitoring-the District of Columbia government has contacted the Federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, because this is the agency that is capable of providing the necessary support to do that; so that is underway.

The District of Columbia government, on our recommendation to select another control population that is not so close to Spring Valley, they have now-the government has now contacted the State of Maryland to ask their assistance in identifying a community in the State of Maryland that may be of similar socioeconomic status that they can use as a control population. It's our understanding that the risks—I'm sorry.

Mrs. MORELLA. Just any time line on that, on identifying that Maryland community that has some similarities, but again I hope would not be so close that it would be identical

Mr. WALKER. That process is well underway, and I've had a verbal report that the data are beginning to come back from the State of Maryland. So that's well underway.

Mrs. MORELLA. The other recommendations?

Mr. WALKER. The other recommendation was one that the Corps of Engineers began to look at specifying, identifying specific arsenic components, since arsenic is one of the compounds that has caused much concern, for obvious reasons. It does cause cancer.

The Corps of Engineers is beginning to move to make some specific identifications with respect to that recommendation. I should point out that we did want to make sure that the agency, the three agencies, District of Columbia government, Corps of Engineers, and EPA, worked with the community to help the community understand this whole problem.

We know that there was concern there about reproductive and developmental problems, but as we looked at epidemiological literature, there is no evidence to suggest that arsenic may cause any productive effects. So we believe that these three agencies should help the community understand what we know about the health effects of the various contaminants and it's our belief that is underway.

We have not scheduled a second meeting, another meeting of the Scientific Advisory Panel, because we wanted to have the Corps of Engineers soil sampling results before we called a second meeting. Some members of our panel are from out of town, and we're trying to make sure we make maximum use of their time. So if we ask them to come back for a second meeting, we'd like to have as much data as possible. So I think it's fair to say that progress is being made on our recommendations. We have not had a formal report that says we are doing X, Y and Z on these recommendations, but I understand from the District officials that report will be forthcoming to our panel.

Mrs. MORELLA. We'd be very interested in seeing that, and I'm just trying to promote the sense of urgency, and sometimes when we set time lines we tend to follow them a bit more closely.

I would like to ask the District of Columbia officials as well as the community to agree to work with this subcommittee as we move along and am hoping that you would respond promptly to any of our inquiries and keep us informed of what's going on, knowing of our interest.

I know that you'd love to make a comment, Mr. Harrop, and I'd like to recognize you.

Mr. HARROP. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to say that I'm disappointed that, as I said earlier, one of the major problems in Spring Valley is a lack of uncertainty, a feeling that people have. They don't have the information, they don't know how badly they or their families may have been affected by these chemicals.

I thought that Mrs. Norton's question about when we're going to get on with the health studies was really not very satisfactorily answered. The answer was that it's a very complicated problem; that there seems to be an argument among the Army and the Agency

for Toxic Study and Disease Registry and the District as to who's going to pay for it.

I simply cannot accept that it's difficult to locate, say, in Montgomery County, in your constituency, a community which is very similar to Spring Valley. This is a small community. It's not a very difficult problem. What people would like to know is that a study is going on. I mean, we've asked Maryland for suggestions as to a comparable community. I just don't think that's a very good answer. I think there's no reason why a study can't go on very expeditiously and satisfy people as to what the incidence of the problem is. I hope we can do that.

Mrs. MORELLA. I appreciate very much your representing the urgency of it. And that's one of the objectives of this subcommittee is to move it forward, to get the time lines to make sure that we do have the study done as quickly as possible.

Yes, Dr. Walks.

Dr. WALKS. If I may, Madam Chairperson, we have worked very closely with the State of Maryland. Georges Benjamin, who is my counterpart for the State of Maryland, has been extremely supportive. We have identified a community in Potomac, MD to use as a control community. That study has in fact been completed, and we will be turning those results over to the advisory panel Dr. Walker chairs so they can review that at their next meeting.

So things are underway. Things are moving. I am never going to be satisfied that they're moving fast enough. I'm sure you will not be either. We will move with as much deliberate speed as we can, and every opportunity to increase that speed, we will ask you to support us and be happy to work closely with you.

Mrs. MORELLA. We want to very much. And, Dr. Walker, when is the next meeting.

Mr. WALKER. I'm sorry?

Mrs. MORELLA. When is the next meeting of

Mr. WALKER. We would hope that we could convene the next meeting in September, early September, after the summer vacation, bearing in mind that we have some academic types on our panel and some are off in foreign countries doing some work. But we would hope by the first of September we would at least have some of the results of the Corps of Engineers' soil sampling, as well as a report of the District of Columbia government, so we can determine what are the next steps, and whether or not what has been done is sufficient to provide the information to draw some conclusions about the health and environmental effects

Mrs. MORELLA. If the members of the subcommittee would indulge me just one moment, I would like to ask maybe Mr. Gordon and Dr. Albright, we have this aerial map here; I wondered if you might just point out to us what some of those sites are, where there are the munitions and where there is the danger of contamination.

Mr. GORDON. Madam Chairperson, I'd also like to point out that we have received a letter from Dr. Henry Faulk, the Assistant Surgeon General with the Agency for Toxic Substance Disease Registry, committed to continue biomonitoring of the residents of Spring Valley and working with the District of Columbia Department of Health. That letter is dated July 21, 2001.

Mrs. MORELLA. Excellent. Good. They don't know whether they can dig, whether they can go into the yard, what's safe and what is not. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Dr. ALBRIGHT. Madam Chair, Delegate Norton, my name is Richard Albright. I'm the District's remedial project manager for this site. I have counterparts from the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA, also called remedial project managers.

This is a 1918 aerial photograph, taken on August 17 of that year, showing the site. The first thing I'd like to call to your attention is the great number of buildings. This was the world's second largest chemical weapons facility at that time. It had 1,200 scientists and engineers, 700 support personnel; and the adjacent site, Camp Leach, which I will indicate here, trained 100,000 engineers during the 2 years it operated, during the 2 years of World War I.

Some key features the main labs, were located in this area on the American University campus. One of the key features that was found in 1986 was this probable pit here. We believe this is the hole called Hades, although we can't definitively prove that, but we're still searching for this particular pit.

There are also two sets of circles up here. These are circular trenches. They were meant to simulate the trench warfare in Europe. They were built in a circle so that when they detonated a shell with gas, it wouldn't matter which way the wind was blowing, it would get to the trench. That's why they're in a circular fashion. They would detonate from 1 to 24 shells at a time. They would stake dogs out in the trenches at 10 foot intervals and then see the effects on the animals of the poison gas. There is a smoke test going on as we speak. That was a major offensive that was planned for the Spring of 1919. We were going to burn 4 million smoke candles. We had the prevailing wind to our backs across the trench in Europe, and the theory was this smoke would blow into the enemy's positions. It would penetrate the

Mrs. MORELLA. Where is that located? I mean, tell me whereI see that, but tell me where—give me more of a graphic

Dr. ALBRIGHT. Between 52nd Street and Dalecarlia Parkway, approximately. We know exactly where it is. We have a map of the area that has that site specifically located. But that smoke contained arsenic, most likely, because of the spring offensive that was planned. The major smoke testing that was done was done at the Montgomery County Country Club, and the big site was in Berlin,

MD.

Perhaps a large number of those smoke candles were buried there in Maryland. The little knob off on the northern trenches is where the original 141 munitions were found back in 1993 by a contractor, employee of Miller Co., putting in, I believe, a water main to a new house that was under construction at that time.

Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Miller, did you know about anything before 1993 about any exposures from munitions?

Mr. MILLER. [Indicating no.]

Dr. ALBRIGHT. OK. Great. Thank you. Continue.

Dr. ALBRIGHT. This is the Sedgewick trenches down here. This is an area where we're looking very intently for a similar burial

site of munitions. We think we have now located a probable location for that.

A few other features. You see these little squares? These are persistency test areas where chemical warfare material was sprayed on the ground to see how long it would last. Generally from aerial photographs, light colored areas denote disturbed ground. It might just be an area where cars travel. Or it might be an area where somebody dug something to bury something, or it might be an area of contamination that prevents the grass from growing again, as in these persistency test areas. The person who probably prepared this for your committee is probably one of the top people in the world, Terry Slonecker of the EPA. He's been working with us for the last year or so

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.

Dr. ALBRIGHT [continuing]. Putting in an inordinate amount of time to try to identify various areas.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Dr. Albright. That gives us a pretty good idea of the contaminated areas.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Madam Chair. I see a problem here that I think we're going to have to get ahold of. When it comes to the cleanup, I want to make sure that nothing interferes with the cleanup and the remediation itself. So that is done by the Federal Government; it would be very hard for the Federal Government to side step that. You know, they did it. They have to clean it up. And they can't look to the D.C. government, they can't look to Mr. Miller. They know they did it. Only they have the expertise and they're doing it. OK.

Ergo, let's then look at a problem for which the Federal Government is equally responsible: the health effects on the community. Now, there, even though the arrow points in exactly the same place it did when it came to the contamination, there we do not have the same focus as we had, because it's just one step removed. It's in the population. You don't know where it is. And, therefore, we do not have the same Federal focus on the people as we have on the sites. That is dangerous. What we do instead is we leave it to the D.C. government to catch as catch can, get grants, seek technical assistance, but depend mostly on its own resources to deal with that health track of this problem.

One thing this hearing has revealed to me is that the Federal Government has accepted its responsibility on one track and not entirely accepted its responsibility on the other track. That concerns me. And I believe we have an obligation not to simply look to the Department of Health and say what are you doing now and have them scramble among the agencies to do what needs to be done on the health effects for which the Federal Government is equally and exclusively responsible, while the Federal Government, having been unable to move away from the contamination itself, shucks and jibes on the health effects.

I am very grateful to what the HHS has done to the ASTDR because they have been very forthcoming in that regard. We will hear testimony from the CDC. I am certainly going to be meeting after this hearing with the agencies involved, because I think that without a single appropriation from the Congress, that there is an ex