A Different Kind Of Cache

[+Criminal]

Teams Comb National Forests For Old Military Ordnance

 

Cleanup effort in U.S. could cost $12 billion

 

By Associated Press

 

MEDICINE BOW NATIONAL FOREST, Wyo. -- Most of the signs for visitors to the Medicine Bow National Forest in southeast Wyoming are like those greeting people at most forests, with the requisite rules about camping, fires and vehicle use.

 

But on a section of Medicine Bow between Cheyenne and Laramie, forest users see an additional sign warning them not to pick up metal objects, which could be unexploded military ordnance.

 

From 1879 until 1961, when the U.S. Forest Service took over the land from the Defense Department, the forest’s 64,000-acre Pole Mountain area served as a military target and training range.

 

Now a team of specialists is combing the ground for old mortar shells and other ordnance as part of a nationwide effort to make former military ranges on federal and private lands safer for public use.

 

“We have no records since 1961 of anybody getting hurt, or even livestock damaged or hurt, from any munitions,” district ranger Clinton Kyhl said. “But we obviously know there is a risk.”

 

The task, given to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers here and elsewhere, is enormous.

 

“Right now, we are aware of about 2,400 former ranges across the country,” said Julie Kaiser, project management specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers working on the program dubbed Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS. “The bulk of them are old World War II training ranges.”

 

FUDS sites cover an estimated 15 million acres, and virtually every state and U.S. territory has at least one. Conservatively, it is estimated it could cost $12 billion to remove the ordnance.

 

“It’s a very expensive prospect to pick up every single piece of what might be ordnance,” Kaiser said.

 

Although there have only been two cases nationwide over the past 20 years of anyone being hurt or killed by old military ordnance, the federal government is spending $145 million over six years to try and assess and inspect each site for the danger posed by unexploded munitions.

 

Sites where munitions were found previously, where some type of construction or digging is planned and which are open to public use, such as Medicine Bow, are ahead in the process.

 

Similar investigations are under way at Camp Hale in the White River and San Isabel national forests in Colorado and the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri, said John Miller, a corps project manager from Omaha.

 

At Pole Mountain, mortar shells, smallarms ammunition, artillery projectiles and even a case of dynamite have been found on the ground in the past. But now, “It’s pretty rare we find this stuff on the surface,” Kyhl said. “After 30 or 40 years, pretty much all the surface stuff has been found.”

 

What worries Kyhl and others is buried ordnance.

 

Miller said the underground ordnance remains a danger because frost can slowly push objects to the surface over time.

 

The corps has hired American Technologies Inc., based in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to help it determine where buried ordnance might exist at Pole Mountain and whether any areas need to be cleared.

 

Since Aug. 8, about two dozen technicians and explosives experts have been crisscrossing the rugged terrain at more than 8,000-foot elevation with metal detectors.

 

They use handheld detectors and a 3-foot-wide wheeled contraption that a technician with headphones pushes along while carrying a backpack of electronics.

 

“It’s basically a mine detector,” said D.J. Myers, an ordnance and explosives safety specialist with the corps.

 

The teams completely covered 12 campgrounds. Because it’s impossible to cover every inch of the 64,000 acres — about 100 square miles — they traversed lines strategically mapped out at points in the forest where soldiers once fired their weapons.

 

Myers figures the teams will cover about 1 percent of the Pole Mountain area.

 

Anything they come across is carefully marked, recorded, dug up or — in the case of munitions — blown up

[+Yamahammer]

Is this a submittal for an Event???

 

[+Airmapper]

I say any cache in that area gets a 5/5.

[+Isonzo Karst]

Da Bomb

[+welch]

I say any cache in that area gets a 5/5.

who wants the FTF prize?

[+sept1c_tank]

I bet you didn’t know that the only American WWII causalities caused by a foreign enemy (on American soil) occurred due to unexploded ordinance. In 1945, in Oregon, a woman and five school children on a picnic died after discovering and moving an unexploded incendiary device attached to an unmanned balloon. The Japanese sent thousands of these timed devices into the wind, many of them landing randomly along the west coast of North America from Canada to Mexico.

 

You can read more about it here.

 

Meantime, don't screw with things unfamiliar.

[+dykediva]

 

Meantime, don't screw with things unfamiliar.

I wish I had this advice when I was 16, would have saved me some heartache. . .

[+briansnat]

A similar thing happened on Storm King Mtn in NY. The mountain had been used for target practice since before the civil war. The authorities realized they had a problem when a forest fire started setting off long buried ordinance. It took almost 4 years to clean it up but it is open today.

Edited October 27, 2005 by briansnat

[Tahosa and Sons]

I've cached and hiked up there several times and no problems. And they have a big Orienteering Event up there every once in awhile and no runners have been blown up. Some infor can be found here

And on the event description there is this note We will also note that much of the area we will be orienteering in was once used for army training during the WWI-WWII era, and that the Forest Service does warn users of the area of the possibility of encountering unexploded ordinance. So if it was really dangerous then why do they have a big international orienteering meet up there.

 

Maybe we can have a CITO up there, scrape whats left of the runner off the trees and use the new hole for a cache placement.

[k_statealan]

I bet you didn’t know that the only American WWII causalities caused by a foreign enemy (on American soil) occurred due to unexploded ordinance. In 1945, in Oregon, a woman and five school children on a picnic died after discovering and moving an unexploded incendiary device attached to an unmanned balloon. The Japanese sent thousands of these timed devices into the wind, many of them landing randomly along the west coast of North America from Canada to Mexico.

 

You can read more about it here.

 

Meantime, don't screw with things unfamiliar.

To be precise, that would be casualties on the US mainland. Americans died in the Aleutians (Alaska) and of course at Pearl Harbor.

[+sept1c_tank]

Yes, you are correct; I meant to say that.

[+StarBrand]

I have cached extensively in the area and have one very nearby - no problems. Used to be some fairly nice caches close to some bunkers in the area. Neat to explore. Lots of 4x4 roads and trails. Also some of the finest rock climbing anywhere is nearby. Pretty area. Never seen anything even remotely suspicious.

[+Mule Ears]

$12 billion seems excessive to counter a hazard that has yet to cause a single injury. But if just one life can be saved...

 

In the 80s I was in the AF stationed on Okinawa. One off-duty day I was out on a bike ride when I spotted a young Marine carrying a large, corroded metal tube.

 

"Whatcha got there?"

"Souvenir--some kinda of WWII bomb, I guess."

 

 

Called the authorities and watched the EOD guys blow the thing up. Left a big crater.

[+Wacka]

In the 80's a guy in my hometown was digging in his yard and found a torpedo! The house abutted an abandoned elevated rail line. It appears that during WWII the torpedo rolled off a train that was sitting there and was buried when the land was cleared for the house a few years later. There was an AMF factory that built torpedoes just a few miles away.

[+clearpath]

Obviously, we will be paying for the clean-up. It is amazing that we are responsible for cleaning up something that happened so long ago. Guess our relatives will be saying the same thing 100 years from now when they have to pay for cleaning all the nuclear waste material.

[+sTeamTraen]

In Belgium (not the world's largest country) they still dig up an average of 300 tons of unexploded ammunition from World War 1 every year. After 90 years.

[+Jhwk]

“We have no records since 1961 of anybody getting hurt, or even livestock damaged or hurt, from any munitions,” district ranger Clinton Kyhl said. “But we obviously know there is a risk.”

 

Obviously?

[Hugh Jazz]

“But we obviously know there is a risk.”

 

Obviously?

They have classified information on the types and numbers of munitions that were fired, the percentage that didn't explode, and the number that have been recovered. That's why it's obvious, to them at least, but to us civilians, it would not seem obvious at all.

[+Moose Mob]

“We have no records since 1961 of anybody getting hurt, or even livestock damaged or hurt, from any munitions,” district ranger Clinton Kyhl said. “But we obviously know there is a risk.”

 

Obviously?

Even without the classified information, the area was used for a waepons range for over 80 years. Yes, the fact that a hazard exists is obvous.

[+Mule Ears]

That unexploded ordinance is a hazard is obvious. What's not obvious to me is that it's enough of a hazard to justify a $12-billion cleanup effort. How about a few warning signs with instructions on how to notify authorities if you spot a suspicious object (shell, bomb, geocache)? Hunters, hikers and cachers could provide valuable scouting without cost. Heck, we could have a new category of event, Cache In/Bombs Out.

[+martinell]

We lit up a range once firing white phosphorus from 155 howitzers and had to go contain the fire until the base fire department got there. You had to be very careful where you stepped because there were several unexploded rounds on the ground, some were partially buried.

 

Even in areas that were not currently used as impact areas, you occassionally saw an old unexploded round that had worked its way to the surface. Those you had to mark and contact range control so that the ordinance people could come remove them.

 

Yes old firing ranges are actually dangerous places - especially if you come across something nasty and unstable.