More Water Woes: Perchlorate doesn’t sound like something you want in your drinking water. But the Post brings us an alert saying that the chemical “known to disrupt the thyroid gland and linked to hormonal dysfunction, developmental delays and infertility” has been found in groundwater near the Dalecarlia Reservoir in Upper Northwest. The Northwest Current newspaper has been all over the issue of World War I-era chemical armaments in the Spring Valley neighborhood and first reported the perchlorate revelations, which had been known only to a “relatively small group of scientists, government officials and neighborhood activists,” the Post says.
While tests have found that levels of perchlorate at Dalecarlia at rates 80 times what the EPA considers safe, there is no federal standard on the chemical because the Defense Department has fought such regulations.
For those who don’t know, the nearby ritzy Spring Valley neighborhood was built on a tract of land used for chemical weapons testing around the time of World War I. The Army Corps of Engineers has been looking at many different ways to clean up remaining armaments (including endoferns) that may be buried in the neighborhood.
Outward Bound: Watching the number of housing developments reproduce like fruit flies out in Prince William and Loudoun counties, it’s easy to see that they’re prosperous. Now new Department of Labor statistics inidcate that job growth-wise, D.C.’s outer suburbs are on fire, the Post reports.
CEB Moving to Rosslyn: Jobs at the Corporate Executive Board, some of the most buzzworthy consulting gigs twentysomethings can snag in D.C., are moving to Virginia, WTOP reports … Rosslyn in particular. No word yet if CEB’s young corporate hipsters are protesting.
Malvo Gets Life: Young sniper Lee Boyd Malvo avoided the death penalty in a Spotsylvania County court by accepting a deal that will lock him up in prison for life without parole, the AP, via the W.Times reports.
Dangers in Springfield: The AP, via WTOP, reports that there has been a rash of armed robberies in the vicinity of the Franconia-Springfield metrorail station in Fairfax County.
Briefly Noted: … George Washington University students have been kicked out of a unsafe rental unit on 22nd Street NW in the latest fallout from the Prospect Street fire. … The baseball stadium issue has attracted 170 people to sign up for City Council public comments, something that hasn’t been seen in quite some time … A federal court has upheld the arrest of a french-fry eating 12-year-old girl who was arrested by WMATA’s transit police in 2000 …
