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SALT LAKE CITY —Because of recent incidents involving the discovery of unsecured or undetonated explosives, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has announced a new tip line: 1-888-ATF-BOMB.
It happens often that as people are cleaning out a garage or storage shed someplace that they find explosives. Experts warn there are many unexploded bombs and other dangerous devices spread throughout the state.
In a demonstration Thursday, the ATF, Utah Bomb Squad Task Force and explosive technicians from Hill Air Force Base showed the types of devices they come in contact with every year and how powerful they are. These are some of the same items that citizens come in contact with as well.
“In the last several years, we've had some issues with explosives. We've had citizens showing up at police departments, unannounced, to turn in explosives. We actually had three occurrences of that,” said Mike Minichino, ATF special agent in Utah.
In 2009, a Box Elder County farmer was accidentally killed when he tried to dispose of some old dynamite himself. And in Tooele County this week, family members going through their father’s belongings discovered 86 sticks of dynamite, which had deteriorated badly. Nearby homes were evacuated until the dynamite was safely disposed of.
The ATF and the Utah Bomb Squad Task Force are called out dozens of times a year. In fact, Utah is No. 5 in the nation in terms of explosive disposal incidents.
“Provo city bomb squad is called out approximately twice a month for explosive pick-ups,” said Lt. Troy Beebe with the Provo Police Department. “Sometimes there are explosive packages or things of that nature.”
Provo city bomb squad is called out approximately twice a month for explosive pick-ups. Sometimes there are explosive packages or things of that nature.
–Lt. Troy Beebe with the Provo Police Department
Things that go “boom” are very common in Utah. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, stats from 2013 show that 71,000 metric tons of explosives were sold throughout the state. The mining and construction industries use them; farmers do too. Lt. Beebe said it's not uncommon that unused items get put on a shelf in a building somewhere.
“And then they'll store it, and sometimes they don’t need it as soon as they thought, and it'll deteriorate and get old and we'll go out and take care of it for them,” he said.
There’s also unexploded military ordnance, or UXOs. Some is found near bombing ranges; others were brought back as war souvenirs. That was especially common during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. According to Staff Sgt. David Olson, a Hill Air Force Base explosive ordnance technician, some of these military grade bullets and shells ended up in trophy cases or out in a garage.
“It was sort of, 'Hey, I was there, these are my trophies kind of thing,' ” he said.
In terms of the amount of unexploded ordnance out there, “there are literally thousands of items,” he said.
With summer now upon us, more people will be outside, and undoubtedly someone will discover an unexploded item. Experts say not to handle or try to move an unexploded item because you could accidentally set it off. They’ll come and get such items anywhere in Utah and remove them for free.
“We're accepting commercial explosives, we're accepting military ordnance, homemade explosives and accepting fireworks, both display type and consumer fireworks,” Minichino said.
