Richard Albright This is Me

Education

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1. 1. Weekly Planet | THIS WEEK IN TALK OF THE TOWN

   www.weeklyplanet.com/2004-08-2 - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/29/2004   Last Visited: 9/29/2004

   Richard Albright recognized the symptoms immediately. An environmental specialist with the District of Columbia Department of Health, Albright has been overseeing the cleanup of a wealthy Washington neighborhood contaminated with chemical weapons.
   ...
   "She was describing these symptoms, and I thought, 'This sounds like Lewisite,'" says Albright, a talkative 61-year-old with a bushy gray mustache. "It couldn't be anything else." A chemical warfare agent developed in 1918 and stockpiled during World War II, Lewisite was designed to make the skin blister and burn. It causes breathing problems and is potentially fatal. "The joke of the day," says Albright, "was that if you put three drops on the tongue of a dog, it would kill the owner."
   
   When the Robinsons went to the University of Texas for evaluations in 2002, medical toxicologist Arch Carson agreed with Albright, concluding that the couple's symptoms were "consistent with Lewisite exposures."
   ...
   "These were not listed in any of the journals or manifests," Albright says, yet they presented long-term threats.

2. 2. 2001 Winner Profile : Richard Albright

   www.cafritzawards.org/winners2 - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/1/2001   Last Visited: 9/24/2007

   2001 Winner Profile : Richard Albright
   ...
   Richard Albright is an attorney, toxicologist, and environmental specialist with the DC Department of Health. After working as a lawyer at federal agencies, he came to the District government, first as an attorney and then as a scientist with the health department, which allowed him to indulge his fascination with ordnance (weapons).
   
   For the past six years, Albright has been a man on a mission who almost single-handedly forced the federal government to clean up chemical contamination left over from World War I, in the Spring Valley neighborhood, an upscale community in upper northwest Washington, DC, located near American University. In 1993, Spring Valley residents learned that their neighborhood was built on top of a chemical weapons proving ground. Through Albright's efforts, he has helped to uncover a major health hazard and threat to residents. There is now hard evidence of cancer clusters in Spring Valley. Albright's fastidious oversight and diligence is responsible for identifying buried chemical warfare sites and other military hazards in the District of Columbia, which ranks 10th among states for its amounts of buried munitions.
   
   In 1995, the US Army Corps of Engineers said the problems were cleaned up and "no further action" was necessary. In the face of ridicule and stonewalling from the Army, Albright refused to relent. He spent months in archives researching the history of the chemical weapons production facility at American University in 1918 and examined aerial photographs. After conducting extensive research, site investigations, and citizen interviews, Albright wrote a 170- page report that forced the Army and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to re-open their investigations in the Spring Valley area. Subsequently, the Army found arsenic levels twenty times as high as the EPA removal guidelines and hundreds of previously undiscovered ordnance. He has succeeded in getting the US Army Corps of Engineers to agree to sample all properties in the Spring Valley area and to create a Restoration Advisory Board for the project, requests he made nearly five years ago. To date, Albright's efforts have lead to the removal of 280 ordnance items, and 175 bottles of chemical warfare material from Spring Valley, 35 ordnance items from Camp Simms, and the discovery of a leaking nuclear reactor at Walter Reed Hospital.
   
   Albright has turned his attention to other parts of the city, including Catholic University and the University of the District of Columbia, areas which presently contain high levels of toxic substances, or possible buried military ordnance.
   
   Albright went to University of Michigan, and got a law degree from Wayne State University. He received a master's degree in environmental health and science at George Washington University. Albright has two children and resides in Washington, DC with his wife.

3. 3. www.cafritzawards.org

   www.cafritzawards.org/winners2 - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/1/2001   Last Visited: 9/24/2007

   Richard Albright Environmental Specialist Department of Health