Ft. Reno Park Closed for Testing (Updated)
Update (5/29): Fort Reno Park has been reopened. Federal officials determined that the original arsenic tests gave a false positive.
Any birders thinking of visiting Ft. Reno Park in NW DC should be aware that the park has been closed for arsenic testing.
"Upon learning of recently reported high levels of arsenic from United States Geological Survey satellite imaging reports," the park service said, it "moved immediately to close Fort Reno Park to the public with snow-fencing being set up around the perimeter of the park."
The park, at Chesapeake Street and Nebraska Avenue NW in the Tenleytown neighborhood, near Woodrow Wilson Senior High School, is a popular site for soccer and other sports as well as concerts. It was shut down about 6 a.m. today.
The satellite imaging was done as part of the Geological Survey's "on-going work in the Spring Valley section of upper Northwest Washington with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," the Park Service said in a statement.
The imaging report, "while not specifically focusing on Fort Reno Park, revealed that the Fort Reno Park grounds contain arsenic levels in the soil and that the levels . . . exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's safety threshold," the Park Service said.
Update: Testing revealed high levels of arsenic, so the park will remain closed.
Fort Reno Park, near Woodrow Wilson High School in the Tenleytown neighborhood, was closed at 6 a.m. Terry Slonecker, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said he informed the D.C. Department of the Environment that soil samples contained arsenic levels up to 25 times higher than federal regulations allow.
"The official guidelines say that anything above 43 parts per million must be removed on a time-critical basis," Slonecker said. "We had several samples up there in the hundreds: 400, 500. The high end was 1,100 parts per million."
After receiving the report late Tuesday, D.C. officials informed the National Park Service, which runs the site. In a statement, the Park Service said it "moved immediately to close Fort Reno Park to the public with snow fencing set up around the perimeter." ...An environmental scientist with the D.C. government, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to comment publicly, said the high arsenic levels at the park might date to the Civil War era, when the site was a fort. He said that at least 72 soldiers were prepared for burial by morticians at old Fort Reno and that "compounds containing arsenic were used as embalming fluid."
He said herbicides, pesticides and lawn fertilizer used in the park over the years also could have contributed to the contamination.
Spring Valley, another area in NW Washington, also has arsenic contamination from weapons stored there during World War I.
