A.F. to scour desert for 'dummy' bombs

Air Force pilots, with some regularity during their exercises above federal land in Utah's western desert, drop "dummy" bombs with small charges that don't detonate.

The charges in those bombs are supposed to go off so Air Force "spotters" can identify how accurate pilots are in hitting their targets. When they don't explode, they need to be destroyed.

The Air Force was recently granted a 90-day "emergency hazardous waste treatment" permit to go onto the range and blow up the dummies where they're found instead of having to take them someplace else for disposal.

With regard to the explosive power of a typical dummy bomb's charge, "It's not really very big," said Wayne Downs, hazardous waste program manager for Hill Air Force Base.

But in his April 13 letter to permit applicant Hill Air Force Base, Utah Solid and Hazardous Waste Control Board executive secretary Dennis Downs (no relation to Wayne) wrote, "The ordnance can be unstable and needs to be treated immediately to avoid any additionally potentially dangerous contact with the explosive items."

A Salt Lake City-based military watchdog, Citizens Education Project, is concerned that what's being issued is a "blanket" permit. The group's director, Stephen Erickson, said it would mean the Air Force wouldn't need to apply for a separate permit if it found potentially more hazardous, larger — albeit more rare — ordnance dating back to World War II. Other than that, he said the permit's on-site detonation allowance helps keep Air Force workers safe.

The 90-day permits are issued through the Utah Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste, which monitors how the Air Force handles its own debris and spent weaponry it finds on the Utah Test and Training Range's 2,675 square miles of ground, composed of several testing ranges.

The UTTR also includes more than 19,000 square miles of restricted "special use" air space, according to the Los Angeles-based Center For Land Use Interpretation. The Center estimates the Air Force conducts more than 22,000 training sorties (one sortie equals one mission by a single aircraft) annually within UTTR boundaries.

Last year a state regulator visited the UTTR 11 times, in part to make sure the Air Force was complying with the terms of its 90-day permits. Wayne Downs said Hill officials want to be open with the public, to create an ongoing trust and to avoid even the perception that they're trying to hide something.

"There's nothing really extraordinary, other than these bomb dummy units," he said about the 90-day permits.