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GARDEN CITY — It's the offseason at Bear Lake and, aside from some melting ice, things are pretty quiet at the marina.
That was until Thursday afternoon, when a parks manager made an interesting discovery on the south side of the marina.
"He noticed some, like, cord on top of the ice," said Rich County Sheriff Dale Stacey. "So he pulled it out, and on the bottom of it was a small pipe bomb."
The sheriff said the bomb was about 6 inches long and made out of three-quarter inch PVC pipe. It wasn't attached to anything, he said, so it doesn't appear it was intended to do any property damage or hurt anyone.
"My opinion is that someone was likely trying to fish with explosives," Stacey said.
A bomb squad from the Cache County Sheriff's Office was called in to help. Technicians moved the device to the shore, where they used a charge to blow it up.
Nearby resident Scott Tolentino, who had just left the area, said it made a big impact.
State parks manager, Richard Droesbeke, discovered a homemade pipe bomb at the Bear Lake Marina. Cache County bomb...
Posted by Rich County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, March 3, 2016
"I come home, and I'm about a mile away from the marina; I could hear it and feel it very clearly here," Tolentino said. "It was loud."
Intentions aside, Stacey said finding a pipe bomb at the marina is a real problem.
"It is still illegal," he said. "… Whenever you find an explosive device, it's a concern."
Stacey said there were no fingerprints left behind, and he estimates the explosive had been in the ice a couple of months.
Anyone with information that could be helpful to the investigation is asked to call the Rich County Sheriff's Office at 435-793-2285.
