Explosion grid revived

Just two weeks after the Army supposedly killed a proposed Utah facility that would test the safety of munitions by using potentially huge explosions, Dugway Proving Ground has resurrected it.

The Utah base plans anew to build its proposed "Insensitive Munitions Test Grid," even though the Army says the mission for which it was first proposed will go instead to Arizona's Yuma Proving Ground.

Dugway says it now figures it needs the new test grid anyway for other testing it already has under contract.

Watchdog groups are not so sure. "It sounds like a classic bait-and-switch," said Steve Erickson, director of the Citizens Education Project and a longtime critic of Dugway.

Dugway initially proposed the facility — which would include clearing all vegetation in a circle with a diameter of up to 4,000 feet — to allow blowing up all types of munitions in the U.S. arsenal under varying circumstances, mapping dispersal and collecting the pieces. Some explosions could be huge.

Dugway said in planning documents that the facility could help attract a lucrative new mission: ensuring that all U.S. munitions are safe from unintended explosions caused by accidents or enemy fire.

Munitions that do not detonate under any conditions other than their intended mission to destroy an enemy target are called "insensitive munitions." Congress recently ordered ensuring that all U.S. munitions are insensitive, which could lead to safer storage, handling and transportation.

"There is a great need within DoD (the Department of Defense) to do this testing," a draft environmental assessment prepared by Dugway said. "This newly mandated requirement provides a unique opportunity for DPG (Dugway) to expand its. . . testing role at WDTC (West Desert Test Center) to fill this DoD need if a facility of sufficient size and capability can be provided."

It added, "A positive economic effect might be realized as a result."

Plans appeared to die two weeks ago when the Army's Developmental Test Command said all future insensitive munitions testing would go instead to Yuma. Dugway spokesman Paula G. Nicholson said then that the base would not sign its draft environmental assessment and would not build the new test facility.

Plans changed this week.

Nicholson said that "all impacts to existing workload were not considered prior to the decision not to sign. After considering all impacts, Dugway Proving Ground intends to sign the EA and use the planned facility in support of existing work."

Nicholson said Dugway now plans to use the grid to test the new MONOPACK, a container for field soldiers to carry 120-millimeter mortar rounds. That is a form of insensitive munitions work for which Dugway is presently funded.