Community members involved with the Fort Detrick Restoration Advisory Board, known as the Fort Detrick RAB, discussed their mounting ecological concerns due to what they claim stem from government negligence at a Frederick, Md. Board of Alderman meeting Thursday evening.
Two supporters of the Fort Detrick RAB, Jennifer Haan and George Rudy, addressed the Board of Alderman during the meeting to discuss, according to Haan, the “imminent ecological danger that will affect the Frederick community.”
“The City government is simply not doing enough to address problems that Fort Detrick wants to help solve,” Rudy, a pending Fort Detrick RAB member and Downtown Frederick resident, said. “[The government] hasn’t done [it’s] job.”
Haan and Rudy referred to “volatile organic compounds,” called PCE and TCE, which have soaked into the Earth’s soil and bedrock in different areas in Frederick. Rain water causes the compounds to discharge into surface water and subsequently flow into larger bodies of water, like Carroll Creek, and water reservoirs in the community.
These chemicals are at such a high level in parts of Frederick’s waterways that the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, labeled the city in an area of “substantial threat” in 2008.
Both Haan and Rudy lobbied for the government to begin addressing the necessity of testing the levels of toxins in the community because, despite the EPA’s warning, the government continues to approve land divisions and developments in areas affected by the toxins which prevents mitigation efforts.
“Fort Detrick has reached out many times and offered to set up an information overview, and I have written the mayor many emails detailing my concerns,” Haan, a member of the Fort Detrick RAB and community member, said. “I have never received a reply. Nor has the City of Frederick taken Fort Detrick up on its offer.”
Haan and Rudy both ended their speeches by pleading that the government stop developing the contaminated land in order to allow testing and subsequent mitigation efforts to occur.
Haan also stressed that the Board of Alderman has an important role in stopping general community “ignorance” about the harmful compounds.
“This is an old solution to an old problem,” Haan said.
According to Fort Detrick’s official website, RAB “functions as a forum for the timely exchange of clean-up information among the community, installation and regulatory agencies. The RAB is not construed as a Technical Advisory Committee in the context of Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) 5 U.S.C. App. 2. The RAB forum offers the opportunity for community members to review the progress of the investigation and clean-up activity and to participate in the decision-making process.”
Community members are able to speak at Board of Alderman meetings during the “citizen comments” section of the meeting. The Board recently approved two “citizen comments” per meeting, one at the beginning and one at the end.
The Board of Alderman is comprised of Josh Bokee, Phil Dacey, Donna Kuzemchak, Michael O’Connor, and Kelly Russell. The Board of Alderman meets every Wednesday at 3 p.m., and holds a public meeting on the first and third Thursday of every month.
Sidebar
Helen Leona Smith Day
The Board of Alderman proclaimed that April 25 will be known as Helen Leona Smith Day.
Smith, who died in 1997 at the age of 103, made many artistic contributions to the City of Frederick during her lifetime.
A 1916 graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, she moved to Frederick to teach art at Hood College.
Eventually, she opened her own art store called the “Palette Shop” in Frederick. While selling art supplies, she was commissioned to paint a large painting titled “Justice” for the Frederick Court House that now hangs in City Hall. She also designed and painted the Frederick seal, including the twin spires that have become icons of the city.
The Board of Alderman oversaw the proclamation of Helen Leona Smith Day, as well as unanimously passing five other resolutions during the meeting.