DC Del. Norton seeks Trump administration funding for Fort Totten chemical weapon investigation, cleanup

More than 100 years after the end of World War I, WTOP has learned D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is seeking funding from the Trump administration to investigate and clean up any remaining chemical weapons buried in Fort Totten Park in Northeast.

Almost five years after an empty World War I-era chemical weapon shell was discovered by the National Park Service during construction of a trail through the park in July 2020, it’s still not clear whether Fort Totten Park has additional munitions buried in the Ward 5 park, located near the Fort Totten Metro station.

In 2022, WTOP reported the Fort Totten discovery was a prequel to the decades-long Spring Valley cleanup at the former American University Experiment Station. Once dubbed the “mother of all toxic dumps” — the site was used by the U.S. government for research and testing of chemical agents, equipment and munitions.

Since the 2020 discovery in Fort Totten Park, WTOP has learned the munitions were likely trucked across town from one of the most wealthy neighborhoods in Ward 3, of Northwest D.C., to the less affluent Ward 5.

Norton: Similar investigation, cleanup needed at Fort Totten

In a Jan. 31, 2025 letter to new Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum and Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Matthew Vaeth, Norton wrote, “I request that the budget include funding for the National Park Service, working together with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to conduct a comprehensive investigation of Fort Totten Park.”

As recently as June 2024, the Army Corps of Engineers continued to find full or partial World War I-era munitions on the campus of American University, in a steep hillside on Rockwood Parkway Northwest, next to the former AU Public Safety Building, which was demolished in August 2017.

The area where the projectiles were found was in a fenced-off Army Corps of Engineers worksite, near Fletcher Gate, on the southern edge of the campus.

The arrow on the right depicts where a 75 mm shell was discovered on a footpath in Fort Totten Park on July 25, 2020. The arrow on the left shows where a World War I Livens projector and 75 mm shell were found next to a road in the park on April 18, 2023. (Courtesy Allen Hengst and Google Maps)

In a November 2023 announcement that a portion of Fort Totten Park would remain closed and fenced, with cement barriers and “no trespassing” signs, the agencies suggested a more thorough investigation was appropriate, although funding was needed.

“Based on investigations to date, the NPS and the Army have determined it is possible Fort Totten Park contains additional munitions,” the 2023 announcement read.

In her letter to the heads of Interior and OMB last week, Norton said, the Army Corps of Engineers “is currently remediating” the Spring Valley site.

“A similar investigation and cleanup are needed at Fort Totten,” she wrote.

Cleanup at Spring Valley after discoveries

Even before a contractor digging a utility trench in Spring Valley in 1993 uncovered a buried military ordnance, which prompted the Army Corps of Engineers investigation that revealed homes on Glenbrook Road were built atop chemical weapon burial pits, contaminated soil from Glenbrook Road was trucked to a landscaping project at Fort Totten Metro station.

In November 2021, the Army Corps of Engineers said the cleanup at the Glenbrook Road site was completed, after it remediated, removed and recovered 556 munition items (23 of them filled with chemical agents), more than a ton of laboratory debris, 53 intact and sealed glass containers of chemical agents and 7,500 tons of contaminated soil.

However, chemical weapons from the former American University site were later found in Fort Totten.

In April 2023, WTOP reported two new metal canisters were discovered in another portion of the park: A 75 millimeter projectile, which contained only soil, and a Livens projectile which contained mostly water, but also a small amount of a commercial chemical that is not hazardous.

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Neal Augenstein

Neal Augenstein has been a general assignment reporter with WTOP since 1997. He says he looks forward to coming to work every day, even though that means waking up at 3:30 a.m.

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