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TOOELE COUNTY — A cleanup operation is underway in the West Desert to get rid of some very old leftover munitions from World War II, mostly old artillery shells.
The Army attempted to blow them up to get rid of them decades ago, but there's a lot of dangerous stuff left over.
KSL has agreed not to release the exact location. After all, there's no reason to attract curiosity seekers to a potentially dangerous area. But the cleanup has been underway for three months, near the eastern edge of the Salt Flats.
With safety a priority, cleanup contractors allowed KSL to watch from a distance as crews scoured the desert. About two dozen workers are looking for stuff the military tried to get rid of 60 years ago.
"Artillery shells, things of that nature that were involved in disposal operations decades ago," said Dan Kur with the URS Corporation.
It's munitions left over when World War II ended. They were disposed of in Utah's desert sometime between 1945 and 1955.
"Back then they took old munitions, put them in a pile, put explosives on them, and treated them, blew them up so that they could get rid of them," said Bob Elliott with Hill Air Force Base.
There are 52 craters from those explosions spread over a two-square mile area.
"When they did the disposal operations, a lot of the stuff did not detonate and it was thrown out," Kur said.
The small fragments they've found, like pieces of artillery shells, are being left in the desert. Big pieces are being hauled out; tens of thousands of pounds of debris so far. Any unexploded munitions they find they're blowing up in place. So far that includes hundreds of unexploded artillery shells, one grenade and a number of land mines.
"Some of the stuff out there could look like what you would think an artillery shell looks like," Kur said. "Some stuff might look like what you'd think a beer can would look like. Some stuff might look like just a big hunk of rust. That could be a rusty fuse. That could cause serious bodily harm."
By the end of next week they expect to have all the surface hazards cleaned up, and blown up. But the project could stretch on for ten years. Eventually they hope to clean up any munitions that might be lurking beneath the surface.
