William Hofmann, senior property and environmental services manager for COPT, referred questions on Sunday to COPT’s general counsel, COPT Senior Vice President Karen Singer.
Reached at home Sunday, Singer said she had no information other than what was in the news release.
“This all came as a surprise to everybody,” said Dori Nipps, executive director of PenMar Development Corp. “We knew nothing about that testing and so it is what it is. We’ll just have to see how it all comes out.”
PenMar is a state agency that monitors redevelopment of the property, including ensuring guidelines are followed in the historic district of the property.
Questions that arise include when was the testing done, how much was done, how it was applied and where it was applied, Nipps said.
“I think the Army is also trying to figure that out,” Nipps said.
“COPT is working with the Army and PenMar to determine the precise locations and extent of the testing conducted within Fort Ritchie and does not have any further details at this time,” states COPT’s news release at its website, www.copt.com.
COPT owns the 591-acre property on which an Army base was closed in 1998.
Operating on the property are a community center and a restaurant, Nipps said.
Development of the property was stalled due to a court-ordered environmental review stemming from a 2005 lawsuit filed by area property owners Jim Lemon and Robin Biser.
The Army was accepting public comment last September on a draft Record of Environmental Consideration that argued no additional environmental review of the redevelopment project was needed.
Agent Orange testing
The Army disclosed two reports to COPT last week that were related to the testing of herbicides at various military installations, including Fort Ritchie, according to the COPT release.
“COPT was not made aware of the 2006 report, the 1956 report or the prior use of tactical defoliants/herbicides at Fort Ritchie until this week,” the release states.
On Feb. 15, COPT received a study published by the Department of Defense in December 2006, regarding the testing and use of tactical defoliants/herbicides at various military installations in the United States, including Fort Ritchie, the news release states.
Nipps said that report was shared with PenMar’s board members last week.
The other report COPT received, on Feb. 17, was titled “Defoliation Investigations During 1954 and 1955,” according to the news release. The report was published in 1956 by the Chemical Corps Research & Development Command Biological Warfare Laboratories.
Both reports can be found online through the Defense Technical Information Center at www.dtic.mil/dtic.
The 2006 report is the result of a 2006 request by the VA to the Department of Defense to provide a list of places and dates, outside of Vietnam, where the department used herbicide agents, including Agent Orange, or where defense department personnel were likely exposed to such agents, according to the report. The VA asked for the list to evaluate the merits of veterans’ disability claims.
Veterans might be eligible for disability compensation and health-care benefits for diseases the VA has recognized as being associated with exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides, according to the VA’s website at www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/diseases.asp. Those diseases include certain cancers, ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, AL amyloidosis, and acute and subacute peripheral neuropathy, according to the agency.
On a Web page, www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/outside_vietnam_usa.asp, last updated Aug. 23, 2010, the VA lists herbicides that were tested or stored in the United States, including at Fort Ritchie.
