Manor View Dump Excavation To Start This Week

Excavation of the Manor View Dump site at Fort Meade is scheduled to begin this week, marking the start of a three-month long cleanup process.

Fort Meade officials said that removal of the soil over the dump could begin as soon as Thursday, with trash removal starting by Friday. The entire excavation could take nine weeks, followed by a restoration process of one or two weeks.

Officials said that nearby residents can expect to see heavy equipment on site and traveling on nearby roads. Trucks will not travel at the start or end of school days.

The Manor View Dump was first discovered back in 2003, when construction crews found demolition debris and trash when building military housing, according to a report last month in the base newspaper Soundoff! Fort Meade investigated and found high levels of methane in the soil.

The Army responded by installing methane monitors in nearby homes and at Manor View Elementary School. It also installed a system to prevent methane from spreading beyond the dump boundary. That system was later upgraded to allow for the actual removal of methane from the ground.

Now, Fort Meade is digging up the entire landfill and hauling its contents to an approved landfill offsite. There is in the landfill. The dump will be filled with clean dirt and the 10-acre site will be restored to a flat grass field.