Hazardous Waste and History Mix On D.C. Tour

Hazardous Waste and History Mix On D.C. Tour By Yamiche Alcindor Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 21, 2009 The manicured lawns and beautiful brick homes that line the streets of Spring Valley look like those in most affluent District neighborhoods. But the area looked much different during World War I, when the Army was using it as a testing ground for chemical weapons. On Sunday, visitors on a tour of the neighborhood heard how, 90 years after scientists ended their experiments, the remnants of toxic munitions remain. "The purpose of the tour is to encourage more historical research, investigation and cleanup here," said Kent Slowinski, who led more than a dozen people on the walk. "We want to raise awareness in both Spring Valley and nationwide." He and Allen Hengst co-founded "Environmental Health Group: Spring Valley," a group that advocates for more research into the locations and health effects of the chemicals. The one-mile walk was part of more than 120 free WalkingTownDC tours, presented by Cultural Tourism DC, that took place across the District over the weekend. During World War I, 661 acres of forested land around the American University campus were used for Army tests. The range became known as the American University Experiment Station. In 1993, a construction crew's discovery of an artillery round triggered an evacuation and cleanup of the area. Experts have since been scouring the neighborhood for buried munitions and chemicals. Workers have found several toxins, such as arsine, a vomiting agent called DA or Clark 1 and liquid mustard, a type of blistering agent. Slowinski, a landscape architect who grew up in Spring Valley, became interested in 1996 when a stonemason with whom he was working found munitions at a home in Spring Valley. For two hours Sunday, Slowinski, who has given several tours of the area, pointed to various campus buildings and houses where hundreds of chemical munitions might be buried. He began at the university's Ohio McKinley Hall, the birthplace of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service. He pointed to trees, football fields and green patches around the university and neighborhood where he believes munitions still lie. Slowinski also talked about homeowners whose health problems might be linked to the neighborhood's past. "It's terrifying," said Chris Cottrell, 22, a senior at American University who took the tour. "There are dangerous munitions buried on campus, and I don't think most students even know about it. This is like the first thing the university should tell students about." Aaron Lloyd, 38, grew up in Spring Valley. Less than a decade ago, his stepfather found munitions buried in the back yard of the home where Lloyd grew up and where his mother had kept a garden. "It's very disturbing," he said. "Someone had to have known about these chemical weapons before 1993." Nan Wells, an advisory neighborhood commissioner from Spring Valley, said she hopes that the tour will help engage the public. "We need follow-up studies to know the health effects," she said during the tour. She also hopes that the Army Corps of Engineers, which along with the D.C. Department of the Environment is overseeing the cleanup and destruction of the munitions, will continue to fund the project. For fiscal 2010, the corps has allotted $11 million to the cleanup effort. The number drops to $3 million in fiscal 2011 and $500,000 the following fiscal year. Nazzarena Labo, 36, a epidemiologist, said more research needs to be done before health effects from the munitions can be determined. "It's very hard to go from anecdotal evidence to causation," she said. "People shouldn't be scared or anxious. But they should be concerned." Slowinski ended the tour at 4825 Glenbrook Rd., a vacant house where cleanup workers found a laboratory vial last month that tested positive for the World War I blistering agent mustard. The home's owner had a brain tumor and eventually moved away, Slowinski said. American University has since bought the house, where cleanup continues.

good ol' socialist capitalism

Everybody wants a bailout - what happened to good ol' capitalism?
"If life were a thing that money could buy/
Then the rich would live and the poor would die..."




Donatelli Development, others request tax breaks for D.C. projects



http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/05/18/daily75.html?surround=lfn

Thursday, May 21, 2009, 2:55pm EDT |
Modified: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 3:15pm

Donatelli Development, others request tax breaks for D.C. projects
Washington Business Journal - by Jonathan O'Connell Staff Reporter

If the D.C. Council approves abatements for developers, Highland Park is one property that would benefit. View Larger Donatelli Development was one of six property owners that came to the D.C. Council Thursday seeking what its executives call badly needed tax breaks in the recession.

President Chris Donatelli is requesting an estimated $8.5 million in commercial property tax abatements for his Highland Park development atop the Columbia Heights Metro station and his nearly completed Park Place development atop the Petworth station.

Donatelli originally planned condominiums for both projects but in the downturn has decided to offer both the 229-unit Highland Park, which is open and being actively marketed, and the 156-unit Park Place, which is nearly complete, as apartments.

He told the D.C. Council's finance and revenue committee that in building other projects in the city like the Ellington on U Street and Kenyon Square in Columbia Heights, "We have never before found it necessary to request a public subsidy or tax abatement." But he said that rents weren't what he had hoped for to this point. "We've realized lower rents than we expected on these units," he said.

A bill to give the Donatelli projects a lift was submitted by Councilman Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, and Councilwoman Muriel Bowser, D-Ward 4. If it were to pass and money were to be then appropriated separately, the city would provide 100 percent real property tax exemption for 10 years and a reduced relief for the following 10 years. Bowser, who has been pushing for improvements to Georgia Avenue, site of Park Place, said Donatelli had been a pioneer in entering the city's neighborhoods early and said the city needed to step in "because we recognize how important it is for these projects not only to move forward but to thrive."

Seeking the largest relief before the committee was the Union Station Redevelopment Corp., whose president, David Ball, charged that the city ought not to be seeking property taxes from sub leases in Union Station and requested $50 million in relief through 2024.

Vienna-based Metropolitan Development seeks $20.3 million in tax exemptions for a project in Shaw, part of Committee Chair Jack Evans's Ward 2. The new development, north of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, would include 256 apartments, 15,000-square-feet of ground level retail and underground parking to replace the Kelsey Gardens housing complex.

Perseus Realty came seeking $138,000 in tax abatements so it can build 1 Hotel & Residences, touted as the first LEED-certified hotel in D.C. The 180-room hotel would be a five-star property at the corner of 22nd and M streets NW, at the site of the former Nigerian Embassy, and operated by Starwoord. Nonprofits the Studio Theatre and KIPP DC charter schools sought relief for their properties on 14th Street NW and on Douglass Road SE, respectively. All will require separate appropriations from the city to receive relief.

Ed Lazere, executive director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, opposed all of the abatements and suggested that the city ought to make larger choices about which property owners ought to receive breaks rather than picking them seemingly at random. Unlike subsidies like tax increment financing, "there is no application process for tax abatements and no required financial analysis by the [Chief Financial Officer].

Lazere said it wasn't fair to bail out one or two property owners in the recession when hundreds of other businesses and nonprofit organizations were in the same predicament. Developers like Perseus and Donatelli, he pointed out, knew the risks of beginning their projects before the downturn began. "We do not believe that a changed economic climate or the fact that some include affordable housing are sufficient reasons for tax abatement subsidies," he said.

But Evans said that even if the process could be improved, the worst thing the government can do in a recession is leave businesses to flounder. He said he planned to move all of the bills. "When a government pulls back in that type of environment it makes it much more dire circumstances than when the government steps up to the plate," he said.