Increased outreach, engagement recommended to group monitoring clean-up of Fort Detrick's Area B

Jan. 20—To keep more Frederick residents informed of the Army's clean-up efforts at Fort Detrick's Area B, a nonprofit has recommended community forums and expanding outreach with information on the process.

Specific recommendations included having the city of Frederick fill a permanent seat on the civilian board that oversees Area B's remediation and regularly posting online updates on Fort Detrick's website and social media pages.

Members of the Massachusetts-based Consensus Building Institute began surveying members of the board in 2022 to understand how members involved in Area B's clean-up could improve relations with one another and the community.

The city's engineer, Tracy Coleman, regularly attends the board's meetings, but the city is looking how it would permanently fill that seat, according to Allen Etzler, the city's communications manager.

Area B, a 399-acre plot of land between Kemp Lane and Shookstown Road, was used by the Army as a test site for its biological warfare program in the mid-20th century.

After former President Richard M. Nixon ended the program in 1969, scientists disposed of its hazardous waste in unlined trenches and pits within the plot, causing the contamination of the site's groundwater.

Army scientists have spent decades studying the extent of the contamination and trying to address it.

In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began overseeing these efforts when the federal agency placed the site's groundwater on its National Priorities List.

{div class="subscriber-only"}This action grouped the groundwater with other Superfund sites around the country that are contaminated from having hazardous waste dumped, left in the open or otherwise improperly managed.

The wide scope and technical aspects of this multi-agency investigation is part of why Stacie Smith, managing director of the Consensus Building Institute, advised that community liaisons brief people who don't regularly attend the Restoration Advisory Board's meetings.

"We heard from others that there may be people in the community who don't know" about the board and its updates, Smith said in her presentation on CBI's findings. "Having a thoughtful outreach plan would be really responsive and helpful."

Smith also provided guidance to ensure that information about human health risks for occupants of current or future developments surrounding Area B is widely available.

One of the ongoing studies at Area B is an investigation into "vapor intrusion," in which chemicals from contaminated groundwater travel through soil into the foundations of buildings and can cause health risks for human occupants.

Over the past two years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed a series of wells between the southwest fence line of Area B and Shookstown Road, part of a 23-acre parcel that will host the second phase of the Waverley View development.

Of 17 wells sampled and tested by the Army in 2021, nine were identified as locations where there may be unacceptable risk from vapor intrusion to future residents, excluding the installation of vapor-mitigating technologies that the Army has said it would pay for.

Those wells were mostly concentrated near the Area B fence line.

In 2022, after additional wells were installed and sampled, five were identified as at-risk for vapor intrusion. Joseph Gortva, chief of Fort Detrick's Environmental Management Division, noted that a broader significance on contamination risk cannot be derived from these few samplings.

"We really can't talk about any kind of historical trends for the site right now because we're looking at such a short time period," Gortva said, adding that the Army will continue monitoring all wells.

Part of the outreach recommendations Smith outlined would include communicating results in a concise way that breaks down technical barriers for community members.

Another recommendation was to build a mailing list to send out information.

In an interview on Friday, Betty Law, a civilian member of the advisory board, welcomed these suggestions from Smith and CBI.

"As RAB members, we have a responsibility to communicate what we have learned from the Army to the greater community," Law said, "but we're looking for ways to get beyond that."

Law's suggestions included websites dedicated to charting the clean-up efforts, with information in plain language for those unfamiliar with Area B and links to more technical aspects of the process for the curious.

After CBI reviews comments like Law's on their January report, the recommendations will be updated and finalized, ensuring, according to Smith, that they are feasible for the board to follow and execute.