A new housing development is going up near Fort Detrick, Maryland, and the Army is considering a series of engineering efforts to protect the homeowners after it contaminated adjacent land throughout much of the 20th century by testing biological weapons.
Many of the homes next to what is known as the Area B section of the base are already built — some of them for sale — and single-family properties are selling for about $640,000, which is roughly the median price for the area. That nearby 399-acre section of Fort Detrick was once a proving ground for the Army’s biological warfare program and used as a disposal site for chemical, medical and radiological waste, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Decades ago, the Army was frequently testing biological weapons on the outskirts of the Washington, D.C., area, and those grounds are still heavily contaminated. Fort Detrick served as the center of the Pentagon’s bio-weapon development, until those weapons were outlawed by President Richard Nixon.
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Today, much of the surrounding area in that part of Frederick, Maryland, has contaminated groundwater, among other environmental concerns. Area B is on the EPA’s National Priorities List for Superfund sites, meaning it ranks a top concern for known releases of hazardous substances, contaminants or pollutants,…
