Detonation of unexploded WWII ordnance OK’d

Stressing that dozens of recovered unexploded World War II ordnance in the CNMI pose an imminent and serious threat to human health and the environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it granted an emergency permit allowing the U.S. Navy to destroy the explosives at once.

Initially, disposal of the explosives was scheduled anytime between May 1 and May 6 at the Tinian Pina Quarry, while another batch would be conducted at a disposal range in Marpi on Saipan – one mile north of the Marpi landfill – sometime in late May or in June, according to the EPA.

The EPA added that the Emergency Management Office will closely monitor the activities.

In a press statement dated April 26,2002, the EPA said it issued “an emergency 90-day permit allowing the detonation or open burning” of the explosives.

“Since the EPA has determined that the unexploded ordnance present an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment, the emergency permit was issued to allow the wastes to be safely destroyed in a timely manner by the U.S. Navy,” the statement read.

To be disposed are bombs, projectiles, small caliber ammunitions and fuses believed used during the Second World War, since both Saipan and Tinian were then battleground.

As of press time, no information that would quantify how much ordnance would be disposed was obtained from the EMO. The EPA noted, though, that the local agency continually encounters and recovers unexploded ordnance.

Permit conditions limit disposal activities to daylight operations and just one open burning daily, while wind speed is not beyond 15 miles per hour. The EPA added that the activities should be halted “if electrical storms are within three miles of the disposal range or if major storms capable of flooding the disposal range are forecast to occur within 24 hours.”

The permit also required the EMO to notify concerned government agencies – the Division of Environmental Quality, the respective offices of the mayor of Tinian and of Saipan, and the EPA regional office in San Francisco, California – 48 hours in advance prior to actual detonation or burning of the ordnance.

Sometime in November last year, the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, detonated more than a thousand pieces of explosives in Marpi.

Several explosives were later recovered by the EMO in separate instances, including a 500-pound airplane bomb found at a quarry site near the Saipan International Airport last January. Recovery efforts prevented huge devastation of a possible explosion.

In less than a month that followed, some 50 ordnance, including a 16-foot warship torpedo, were found in Marpi near the landfill project. At the landfill site, several dozens of unexploded ordnance were also recovered.