Fearing an explosion of methane gas, the Army has evacuated a dozen families from homes built near a buried former landfill at Fort Meade, a move that critics said wouldn't have been necessary had the Army post's private housing developer stopped building when it uncovered the site three years ago.
Col. Kenneth O. McCreedy, commander of the western Anne Arundel County post, has ordered that a cluster of 20 townhouses, including those occupied by the 12 families, stay unoccupied as environmental regulators assess the risk.
"My commitment to fix this problem [and ensure] the safety of the residents of Fort Meade are paramount," McCreedy said.
Federal and Army regulators say the World War II-era dump, which is buried under 15 feet of earth and is the apparent source of the methane, may have to be dug up and cleaned out.
Underground methane levels near the center of the site have registered about 600,000 parts per million, or four times the federal upper-level explosive limit. Officials have grown concerned as explosive pockets of methane have shifted west, toward the townhouses, some of which are 40 feet from the edge.
Critics say the homes should never have been built there.
"There is absolutely no justification for putting military families this close to this dump," said Zoe B. Draughon, co-chairwoman of the Restoration Advisory Board, a group of residents and regulators overseeing Fort Meade's Superfund cleanup. "There is none."
Regulators and other representatives overseeing the cleanup are critical of the private developer, Picerne Military Housing, which built the homes before Fort Meade officials could perform a comprehensive assessment of the area.
They said top military officials and congressional leaders, eager to get a national privatized housing initiative off the ground, allowed Picerne to proceed with a $400 million redevelopment of Fort Meade housing before regulators and the post's environmental officials could review key studies held by Picerne and Army housing officials.
"They just went ahead and did what they wanted to do to get the housing in," Robert Stroud, a project manager with the Environmental Protection Agency, said of the motives of top military officials. "They figured they would deal with the regulators later."
