By TERRI SANGINITI
Staff reporter
08/04/2004

The U.S. Army plans to investigate how and why vintage munitions are turning up in crushed clamshell driveways in Delaware, officials said Tuesday. Three Dover Air Force Base servicemen were injured last month trying to disarm a World War I-era projectile found in a poultry farmer's clamshell driveway.

Since February, state police have responded to seven complaints of vintage explosives in driveways paved with crushed clamshells in Sussex County, and 100 pieces of munitions have been found. Experts describe the recovered ordnance, which has been sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for more than a half century, as live and very unstable.

The Army Corps of Engineers, an Army branch that has among its charges the elimination or reduction of risks from ordnance, explosives and chemical warfare materiel at current or former defense sites, plans to visit the seven sites in Sussex County where ordnance was retrieved to ensure none remains.

The corps also plans to inspect Sea Watch International's Milford plant, the only clam-processing plant in Delaware, where an investigation into plant safety is under way by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration. The property of a clamshell hauler also will be inspected, a military spokesperson said.

In addition, the corps will educate the public about what to look for and the dangers associated with unexploded ordnance.

Corps officials met Friday, said Robert Williams Jr. of the corps' Baltimore District, which handles ordnance.

In February, a Bridgeville man carried 32 live hand grenades in a bucket to State Police Troop 5 in Bridgeville. The man found the explosives while spreading several loads of crushed clamshells delivered to his property in November.

The man bought the clamshells from hauler Perry Butler, who picks up discarded shells from the Sea Watch plant in Milford and sells them.

By early April, state police bomb experts had recovered 99 devices. They were turned over to Dover Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Flight squadron for safe disposal.

On July 19, a state trooper spotted another munition protruding from a Bridgeville-area poultry farmer's clamshell driveway near the Maryland state line.

When three servicemen assigned to the 436th Civil Engineer Squadron's explosive ordnance unit were attempting to disarm the corroded World War I 75 mm projectile at the base, they came in contact with a black, tar-like substance.

A day later, the two staff sergeants and one technical sergeant were hospitalized with undisclosed symptoms from a blister agent in the munition.

Two of the victims were treated at Kent General Hospital and released the next day.

The third was released from Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia last week, Dover Air Force Base spokeswoman Lt. Ali Tedesco said.

The contents of the shell were tested at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and tentatively identified as a sulfur-based mustard agent of the type produced in large quantities for armed forces around the world.

Tedesco said Tuesday the ordnance remains on the base awaiting disposal.

Anyone finding unexploded ordnance should call 911 immediately, an Army spokesperson said. Anyone who has concerns about recent deliveries of crushed clamshells should contact the Baltimore District at (410) 962-4006.