Hundreds of old munitions found so far in 80 driveways
By TERRI SANGINITI / The News Journal
07/19/2005
Ed Banning's Bridgeville driveway was
among the many pieces of ordnance
dredged up with clams.
The cost of recovering unexploded munitions from crushed clamshell driveways in Delaware has already soared to nearly $6 million.
Altogether, 80 driveways have been surveyed, and 312 vintage military explosives have been found and destroyed since the project began in August, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager Robert Williams Jr., of the Baltimore district.
The corroded devices from World Wars I and II, although left undisturbed on the ocean floor for decades, are unstable and can still inflict injury.
Forty of them were recovered from the Sea Watch International clam-processing plant, where they had been trucked after they were dredged up with clams off the New Jersey coast.
Included in that number was a corroded 75 mm shell containing chemical warfare material, Williams said.
The unexploded round was similar to a World War I-era projectile that left three Dover Air Force Base bomb technicians hospitalized last year. The three technicians encountered a mustard gas agent in the device, which was recovered July 30 from a Bridgeville driveway.
Williams said the Sea Watch plant was forced to install a sophisticated metal detector after investigators traced all of the old munitions back to the plant.
"It's a really positive success story there that's not making it out to the general public," he said. "If something goes through that metal detector, it stops the conveyor belt."
The plant had been cited by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in October for exposing its employees "to explosion, skin contact and inhalation hazards due to military ordnance being discovered during the processing and packing operations."
In December, the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control issued an order to Sea Watch and Milford trucker Perry Butler forbidding them from taking any shells from the plant unless they were free of ordnance.
Butler, who distributed the clamshells mostly to downstate customers to pave driveways, has had his property surveyed by Army engineers and is able to resume selling the crushed shells to customers, Williams said.
"We're not trying to go after new loads," he said. "The Sea Watch detector system is perfectly fine."
Loads shipped out years ago, however, may still pose problems for the people who received them. Last week, Delaware State Police explosives disposal technicians recovered a pineapple hand grenade from a clamshell driveway on Windy Lane in Cannon, north of Seaford.
"The property owner thinks this thing surfaced following heavy rains," state police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Oldham said. "He has had the clamshells in his driveway for three or four years."
Oldham described the device as an MK21 practice grenade that contains a reduced explosive charge. It was turned over to bomb technicians at Dover Air Force Base for destruction.
"It could cause injury if detonated," Oldham said.
Williams said Army engineers plan to continue surveying driveways until no more of the devices can be found. He could not estimate how long that would take.
"We're prepared to do as many driveways as we can," he said. "I'm not going to put a number on it."
When federal officials announced the cleanup last summer, they said they were prepared to spend as much as $20 million.
The recovered munitions have been unearthed primarily in Delaware, although Williams said Monday that a 9 mm device with a fuse attached was found in a Maryland driveway.
Williams said engineers are using Butler's customer list and lists of other trucking companies that deliver the crushed clamshells to try to find the ordnance.
"If you've gotten clamshells and you're suspicious of them, let us know," Williams said.
Staff reporter Chip Guy contributed to this article. Contact Terri Sanginiti at 324-2771 or tsanginiti@delawareonline.com.