Question: Where, in our fair nation, is the largest and most expensive military toxic waste cleanup operation in an urban area?

Answer: Washington, D.C.

They’re not digging up old bombs and poison chemicals down by the Anacostia River where the Navy still moors a few old ships. The FUDS, short for formerly used defense site, is on the western edge of Spring Valley, home to ambassadors, senators, owners of major league sports franchises.

Only D.C. would have an elite toxic waste dump.

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That the Army Corps of Engineers is digging up fancy landscaping in front of mansions is hardly news. It is well known that the Army set up labs on the campus of American University in 1917 and asked scientists to send in their best poisons, which the Army’s chemists then mixed into toxic bombs and tossed at goats tied to trees in the forest.

Spring Valley’s chemical past came to light in 1993 when contractors were surprised to dig up a cache of chemical bombs. Arsenic residue from Lewisite, the most toxic agent loaded into bombs at AU, has turned up in scores of yards. The Army and local real estate agents would like this toxic moment to pass, but I have come across some disturbing news.

One morning last week I drove across town on Nebraska Avenue, past the AU campus to 4825 Glenbrook Road, ground zero. A chain link fence separates the busy street from the dig. Signs on the fence tell neighbors what to do if they hear sirens, which might mean toxic fumes might have been released. A map of the area includes fine homes, AU classroom buildings, the college’s child care center.

A D.C. cop almost put the cuffs on me when I tried to walk past the ambulance parked in the driveway, the better to check out the pit.

Years ago, in investigating the chemical weapons tale, I walked the streets and surveyed the neighbors for health problems. Arsenic is a poison, after all. I came across the 1918 picture of a soldier dumping huge ceramic jugs of chemicals into a “hole called Hades,” where the worst of the worse found a home.

I asked Dr. Richard Albright whether he thought the current dig is the horrible hole. Albright is a lawyer and environmental scientist with the D.C. health department. He’s the only person I trust on this matter.

“No,” he said.

Albright thinks there’s more digging to be done, but he has no real say. D.C. yanked him from the project years ago, and he has not been replaced. We are reliant on the Army Corps of Engineers, which told us Spring Valley was clean in 1996.

Moreover, a new satellite photo using technology that can detect grass grown in ground with high arsenic levels shows such high levels at soccer fields at Fort Reno and a track at Wilson Senior High School.

Why? Is this a new health hazard? Should we be alarmed?

Good questions.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the D.C. health department could assure us?

Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at hjaffe@washingtonian.com