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Updated: 4:42 PM Jan 2, 2009
Cleaning Up Unexploded Bombs and Rockets
POQUOSON, Va. (AP) It's been about 50 years since the U.S. military stopped using Plum Tree Island for target practice with bombs and rockets, but there's still unfinished business. Posted: 6:00 AM Jan 3, 2009 |
Courtesy: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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It's been about 50 years since the U.S. military stopped using Plum Tree Island for target practice with bombs and rockets, but there's still unfinished business.
Between two and five percent of the ordnance used on the Chesapeake Bay Peninsula between 1917 and 1959 probably didn't explode, and now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to clear the marshy landscape.
George Follett, who will manage the cleanup, says there will probably be some loud bangs as unexploded bombs are detonated, but nothing to worry about.
In 1958, three teenagers were seriously injured when a bomb half-buried in the sand exploded.
Work is scheduled to begin in mid-January and continue into April, then resume in 2010.
