The ordnance was dredged up over the last 18 months from the
ocean floor during mechanical clam-harvesting operations off the New Jersey
coast, in the vicinity of Atlantic City, according to Robert Williams of
the Army Corps of Engineers, which is conducting the probe.
More than 300 munitions - mostly British- and French-made
hand grenades but at least one 75mm projectile containing a chemical agent
- have been recovered from 18 driveways and a Delaware clam-processing plant,
Williams said.
Some grenades were actually found inside the clams.
Last February, a Bridgeville, Del., resident discovered a
veritable ammo dump of 32 corroded - but live - hand grenades while spreading
crushed clamshells delivered to his property. Subsequent similar discoveries
triggered the investigation.
The Army Corps of Engineers is examining at least 100 driveways
for surprise shellfish, Williams said.
No homeowners have been injured, but three servicemen from
an explosive-ordnance unit at Dover Air Force Base were hospitalized in July
while detonating the projectile, which contained potentially lethal mustard
gas.
Either the Army or the Navy dumped the ordnance at sea, Williams
said, but the investigation's chief priority is not how and why the material
got there, but where it is located. The harvesting was done about 20 miles
offshore.
"It's something that happened 60 to 70 years ago," said Williams,
project director in the Corps' Baltimore district. "Right now our main focus
is not who did it but where this stuff came from and where it went.
"We're worried about kids playing kick the ball in the driveway,"
he said.
The investigation has already cost almost $6 million and could
eventually cost more than twice that, Williams said. A report is due in six
weeks.
Although Williams said the Army had "accepted responsibility"
for the mollusk munitions, the Navy may have transported the ordnance out
to sea.
"We don't know," said Lt. Erin Bailey, a Navy spokeswoman.
"We have no records and there's no one I can ask. The Navy is prohibited
by law from dumping munitions into the ocean."
Ocean dumping of munitions and other materials is illegal
without a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency, according to the
1972 Ocean Dumping Act.
"We don't know if such dumping was regulated before 1972,"
EPA spokesman David Ryan said.
The ordnance recovered thus far consists mainly of French
grenades and British Mark II hand grenades that resemble small pineapples.
As to why foreign munitions were dumped by the U.S. military
off the New Jersey coast, Williams said: "That's a good question. We were
friends with them at the time."
The main clam-processing plant in Delaware is run by Sea Watch
International Ltd. In October, Sea Watch was fined $9,000 by the federal
Occupational Safety and Health Administration for exposing its employees
"to explosion, skin contact and inhalation hazards" from the harvested ordnance.
Sea Watch officials declined to comment.
Typically, Williams said, a dredging company would put the
haul in a holding container aboard ship and then transfer it to a steel cage,
known as a load, to be placed on the dock. The loads are taken to a processing
plant, where pressure is applied to force out the clam meat, juice and shells.
The shells are further crushed and sold to hauling companies
for use in driveways and parking lots.
Locating exactly where in the ocean the questionable quahogs
were dredged has proven difficult.
"These companies don't like to reveal a good fisheries location,"
Williams said.
Crushed clamshells are sought by poultry farmers and homeowners
for driveways along the Delmarva peninsula because the material is inexpensive.
In the course of the investigation, Williams discovered that
a high-ranking Delaware official was contemplating a clamshell driveway.
Fortunately, John A. Hughes, head of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources
and Environmental Control, changed his mind.
Even without potential bomb shells, the concept holds no attraction
for Williams.
"I don't see why people do it," he said. "They stink."
