Searching for used ordnance
Corps seeks public assistance at old bombing range
By Terry Brown
Special to The Record
Publication Date: 08/02/08
SWITZERLAND -- Growing up on the St. Johns River, Lori Mazza remembers the sounds of airplanes roaring down the waterway on their bombing runs. Less than a quarter mile away from the childhood home she still occupies today, Navy bombers would take aim on targets at the site located on what was then Bombing Range Road.
"We grew accustomed to the concussions made from bombs hitting their targets," Mazza said, "and I vividly remember the day a plane crash-landed in the river in front of our house."
Her parents raced to help the injured only to find they had ejected to safety somewhere up river.
Much has changed in the surrounding area. The roadway fronting the range has since been renamed Greenbriar Road, but remnants of the 1,900-acre bombing site remain.
At the direction of the U.S. Congress, the Army Corps of Engineers is evaluating the Switzerland site used during World War II first as a landing strip and later as bomb training site through 1961. The Corps of Engineers recently completed a site inspection and is asking the public to tell them if ordnance remains in the area.
"So far we have found nothing significant on the Switzerland site other than inert ordnance and debris," Charles Fales, project manager, said Friday.
At the northwest quadrant of the bombing site are Switzerland Point Middle and Hickory Creek Elementary schools, as well as several subdivisions. There are also hundreds of acres of property for sale surrounding the old bombing range.
Five types of munitions were used at the training site, according to Hugh Sease, owner of Ordnance and Explosive Remediation Inc. in Cohasset, Mass. Of those, only two types could still cause harm now more than 45 years since the last sortie run on the site.
The active 3- and 25-pound bombs contained a Mark 4 signal cartridge that, upon impact, would shoot out titanium tetrachloride or a white cloud that resembled talcum powder, Sease said. A spotter in a tower would grade the bomber for accuracy. He said the Department of Defense also used 100-pound sand-filled bombs and two practice rockets that did not contain a charge.
Sease's company has participated in three cleanup operations at the site, the last about four years ago. He said the Mark 4 signal cartridge had the impact equivalency of a 10-gauge shotgun shell. Sease said the charge is encased in a tube that at this point would most likely be filled with dirt and debris. While the charge is not enough to kill someone, it could cause harm to people, he said.
"If someone were to toss one into a fire, there is a very good chance they would get peppered pretty good from the dirt inside the tube," Sease said.
Sease also said standard practice for site clean-up at the location of the schools is a minimum of two feet of fill dirt that is capped with rock, concrete or asphalt. Sease stressed those school sites were on the fringes of the property and in the unlikely event there was ordnance present, it was safely encased during construction of the schools and would pose no threat to students or staff.
The Greenbriar subdivision sits adjacent to the old bombing range. Resident Reg Pilinko built his home in the subdivision in 2001, and said the developer required him to sign a waiver stating he was aware of the former use of the site. Pilinko said it is not unusual to find all kinds of spent ordnance throughout the area.
Pilinko said his brother, who also lives in the neighborhood, uses the cone of a shell as a doorstop in his home. They also hunt wild hogs and deer on the old bombing range and say at any given time you can come across rusted out pieces of bombs from a bygone era.
"It's all over the place -- everywhere you walk out there," said Pilinko looking out on the remnants of the bombing range skirting his property.
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