Chemical Weapons Cleanup in Northwest DC

Don’t you just hate it when you buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood near American University and the next thing you know you’re finding out that, just a few feet below where you put your children to sleep, there is discarded mustard gas from back in the day when your property was used as a chemical weapons testing ground? No? Never happened to me either, but it has indeed happened in D.C., and a pretty large cleanup effort is entering a crucial stage in Northwest.

The house in question is located at 4825 Glenbrook Road NW, about a block from American University.  The house has already been razed, but crews are beginning to excavate underneath the home’s foundation today.  Previous excavations have led researchers to believe that there is mustard gas and something called lewisite located underneath the home.  Lewisite is a particularly nasty chemical that penetrates clothing and even rubber, causing chemical burn.  It can also wreck havoc on your liver—or just plain kill you....