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POSTLOCAL.COM 42, 9 a.m. 47, noon 50, 5 p.m. 44, 9 p.m.
A Local Life William Addams Reitwiesner tracked the roots of family trees, making interesting finds about distant relations. C7
It’s game day Share your photos, get the game- time forecast and tell us about your lucky charms for Washington Redskins games at
PostLocal.com.
A ‘beloved son’ of the Civil War
With parent’s note, researcher may have identified fallen soldier
BY MICHAEL E. RUANE
The lock of blond hair was probably clipped when the sol- dierwasa child, tied in a knotand placed with the photo of him as a little boy, along with a note writ- ten years later by his stricken
parent. “My beloved son Carl,” the note
read, “taken from me on April 1, 1865 at age 18 killed atDinwiddie” during the Civil War. “Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” But who was this mysterious
boy, pictured in a Library of Con- gress acquisition? Where was his home? And what of the grieving mother or father who cherished his memory? AVirginia researcher hascome
forward with a possible identifi- cation of the boy in the photo-
Sorrow and a seasonal remembrance at Arlington
graph, which is among the most intriguing in a huge collection of Civil War portraits just donated to the library. The soldier may have been
Carlos E. Rogers, a Union infan- tryman from the Syracuse area. He was killed in battle in Dinwid- die County, Va., fighting with the 185th New York infantry regi- ment in the closing days of the war. So theorizes Nancy Dearing
carl continued on C4 COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Agrief-laden note accompanies a lock of hair and photo in a Library of Congress collection.
LOCALOPINIONS
Changing the reality Prince George’s political figures offer suggestions to the county’s new government team on how to fight corruption. C6
Not quite fit for duty Answer Man closes the chapter on ships that once languished in the Potomac with the tale of the ghost fleet of Mallows Bay. C3
D.C.water study sharpens view of lead threat
PIPE WORK REASSESSED
CDC casts doubt on partial replacement
BY DAVID BROWN T PHOTOS BY CAROL GUZY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Shanna Tessar, above, cries at the grave of her father, Army Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Tessar, who died in Iraq five years ago. The graves at Arlington National Cemetery, right, are adorned with wreaths donated by theWorcesterWreath company and placed by volunteers.
he latest research on the District’s decade- long effort to reduce lead in its drinking water is likely to re-
verberatewell beyond the city’s borders and add a chapter to one of themore tortuous public health chronicles of the past century. A report released thismonth
by the Centers for Disease Con- trol and Prevention said the water suppliedtoalmost 15,000 homes might still contain dan- gerous levels of lead despite the partial replacement of lead pipesat thehomes from2004to 2008. The findings called into
question what was once one of the city’s chiefmethods ofmiti- gating lead contamination of drinking water. The federal government ordered the Dis- trict’s water authority — now calledD.C.Water—to carry out those replacements, but the CDC study found that they didn’t solve the problem. Lead poisoning was once
thought to be a serious threat only when it caused such dra- matic problems as personality changes, anemia and kidney failure. But lead is now consid- ered a toxin for which there is no safe level, especially in small children. For them, even low concentrations in the blood are associated with reduced IQ, at- tention deficit and antisocial behavior. As evidence of lead’s hazards
6
Futuristic weapon undergoes Navy tests
Experimental railgun uses electricity instead of gunpowder
BY MICHAEL E. RUANE The red and yellow warning
flags were
out.The gun range was cleared. The klaxon sounded. “System is enabled,” the voice
on the speakerphone said. There was a pause, then a distant thud that could be felt through the floor.
“Gun is fired,” the voice said. Inside a cavernous building at
theNaval SurfaceWarfare Center in Dahlgren, Va., on Friday, a gigantic pulse of electricity hurled a 20-pound slug of alumi- num out the barrel of an experi- mental gun at seven times the speed of sound. The slug trailed a pillar of fire
as it left the weapon and the building, illuminating the sur- roundingwoodslike a giant flash- bulb. It streaked down range, generating a small sonic boom, and traveled about 5,500 feet be- fore tumbling to the ground harmlessly. In an adjacent building, there
was a round of applause from observing scientists. It was the latest test of the
Navy’s electromagnetic railgun— a futuristic weapon that is right out of the latest video war game andcouldonedaychange the face ofNaval warfare. Roger Ellis, the railgun pro-
gram manager, said people “see these things in the video games, but this is
real.This iswhat is very historical.” Thegunis fired with ahuge jolt
of electricity that can propel a round more than 100 miles and at such velocity that it does not need an explosive warhead. Two tests were conducted Fri-
day—the first of which the Navy said generated a world record 33 megajoules of force out of the barrel. The second shot, wit- nessed by reporters, produced 32 megajoules. Forty-five minutes after the
second shot, a part of the battered bullet that was retrieved from the range was stillwarmto the touch. The Navy hopes the railgun
might bring a sci-fi level of range and firepower to its fleets of the future. “It’s exhilarating,” Elizabeth
D’Andrea, the railgun project’s strategic director, said after the test. The gun itself doesn’t look
muchlike a gun. It consists of two railgun continued on C4
ROBERTMCCARTNEY
Weeding out the culture of corruption in Prince George’s
practices that plague Prince George’s government and poli- tics, I thought I’d take a step back and look at how the illicit culture functions andwhy it persists. To do so, I consulted a half-
A
dozen veteran PrinceGeorge’s civic
players.None would speak for the record, because themat- ter is so sensitive and public comment could cost them profes- sional associates, clients or even friends. So you’ll have to take it frommethat the group repre- sents decades of experience in the fields of government, politics, business and law. Also, sincemany Prince
George’s residents believe the media is out to sully their image, I want to stress that I’mnot do- ing this out of malice. I and the people I interviewed want to shine a light on the ailment in or- der to help cure it. The mission is to help County
ExecutiveRushern Baker fulfill his goal, described in his inaugu- ration speechMonday, of making
s federal prosecutors and a newcounty executive start trying to clean up corrupt
PrinceGeorge’s “first in integri- ty” in theWashington region. Based on what I heard from
my sources, Baker’s got a long way to go. All of them saidmatter-of-fact-
ly that shady dealings are com- monin the county. They based that judgment partly on first- hand experience but also on what they’d heard from others. Much of what they described was on the borderline—or across the border—of illegal behavior; of course that would be for courts to decide. The sources said questionable
trade-offs are especially frequent in the labyrinthine process in which developers must obtain numerous approvals and permits to construct housing complexes or office buildings. “Everything is politicized, has
some price tag every step of the way,” a PrinceGeorge’s lawyer said. “This has mademany devel- opers and businesses shy away from the county.” Another lawyer said a typical
mccartney continued on C3
on
washingtonpost.com Wreaths at Arlington
For more photos, visit
washingtonpost.com/local
accumulated over 50 years, re- ducing exposure became anim- portant, expensive and conten- tious goal of government. Lead was removed from gasoline. Lead paint was banned. Chil- dren, particularly those living in dilapidated housing in old cities, were tested regularly, and doctors and public health officials stepped in to protect those whose “lead burden” was high.
Now, thanks to the new C EZ SU
JOHNKELLY’SWASHINGTON
How much lead is too much?
No amount is safe to consume. Federal guidelines have set an “action level” for lead in drinking water of 15 parts per billion. Once lead reaches that concentration, a water system must take action to reduce it.
Too much lead in the human body can cause serious damage to the brain, kidneys, nervous system and red blood cells. Te Environmental Protection Agency estimates that lead in drinking water contributes 10 percent to 20 percent of total lead exposure in young children. Young children and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning.
For more information on childhood lead poisoning, lead in the workplace or lead in the environment, go to
www.cdc.gov/lead.
study, this much is clear: Even when the known exposures to lead are minimized and a city meets the federal government’s safety standards, some children may be getting a worrisome amount of lead from the water they drink. “This really means that the
Topic: Local
whole way that we’ve thought about this problem, and have developed public health poli- cies to address it, has to change,” saidEllenSilbergeld, a professor at the JohnsHopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Run Date: XX / XX / 2010 Size: 23p2 x 150 pt Artist: Name
lead continued on C5
Md. Republicans pick Mooney to lead party
Ex-senator promotes himself as fundraiser and race winner
BY JOHNWAGNER Maryland Republicans on Sat-
urday turned to recently defeated Sen. Alex X. Mooney (R-Freder- ick), a staunch fiscal and social conservative, to rebuild the party after last month’s loss by its big- gest star, former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). Mooney beat four other candi-
dates seeking the party’s chair- manship, including Mary D. Kane, Ehrlich’s runningmate this year in his rematch against Gov. Martin O’Malley (D). Kane, a Montgomery County resident, was widely seen as the more moderate choice for chairman. In appeals at a state party
convention in Annapolis, Mooney, a three-term senator, said that he had demonstrated an ability to raise money and win
races, despite his Nov. 2 loss. Mooney said he would use those skills to help GOP candidates win other contests, and he urged Re- publican hopefuls to stick with their conservative principles. “I’m the only candidate who’s
won elections in this race for chairman,” Mooney told the 265 party activists.He also touted his refusal to vote for tax increases during his Senate tenure. Kane, who served as secretary
of state under Ehrlich, said that “opinion diversity” was good for the party and that the party must work to broaden its appeal in heavily DemocraticMaryland. “We will show up in places
where Republicans are not ex- pected,” she promised. Mooney prevailed over Kane,
362 to 219, on a second ballot. Mooney led but fell short of a required majority in the first round of voting that included all five candidates. Mooney was immediately
sworn in, taking over a party that maryland continued on C4
leadscienceB PROOF1
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