Page 11 of the PAERAB's Spring 2008 TAPP Contractor Newsletter

Text Box: ( Article provided by Ms. Audra Calloway of the Picatinny Public Affairs Office. ) Picatinny’s Military Munitions Response Project for RCI Housing resumed full operations May 1 after being temporarily suspended for more than two weeks. The project, which began in February, looks for munitions near the installation's housing areas that were associated with an explosion that occurred here in 1926. The MMRP project was temporarily suspended April 11 after a steel fragment broke away from an M107

Text Box: CFR clarify that ( munitions and explosives of concern ) “MEC are included in the Department’s environmental restoration program…” and that the “...detection and disposal of unexploded ordnance...are currently included by definition as part of environmental restoration”. Munitions and munitions fragments were dispersed by the 1926 explosion throughout the Arsenal and onto adjacent land. As a result the MMRP program at Picatinny has also been concerned with the investigation and potential disposal of MEC external to the Arsenal. Mr. Peter Rowland the Arsenal’s official spokesperson took considerable time from his schedule to personally address the RAB during its May 29, 2008 meeting to clarify this matter.

155 mm artillery projectile during a static test and traveled more than a mile until it passed through the roof of a Jefferson Township home.

Picatinny Commanding General Brig. Gen. William N. Phillips suspended the

munitions investigation, as well as outdoor testing, after the incident.

However, he has approved the MMRP project's continuation after being assured by safety experts that removal procedures are completely safe and operations are not a risk to the public, employees and Picatinny residents, Picatinny spokesperson Peter Rowland said.

The RAB Community Co-chair Michael Glaab provides the following comments: '... Mr. Rowland’s presence and his frank and detailed clarification were reassuring and much appreciated. Measures will presumably be taken

Efforts to determine the cause of the April 11^th

incident continue, Rowland said. "We will find the cause

and we will fix it," he emphasized.

The accident is the subject of two investigations, one internal and another that is external.

The fragment that broke off, which was non-toxic, was retrieved that evening by a Picatinny Explosive Ordnance Disposal team and is being evaluated as part of the investigations, he said.

There are no plans to reevaluate or alter the current MMRP procedures at Picatinny since the MMRP is

on a historical range, not an active test range, explained Mr. Ted Gabel of the Picatinny Arsenal Environmental Affairs Division.

Local police and elected officials were notified that the MMRP project would resume.

Picatinny also set up a special telephone hotline that local citizens with questions about testing can use to contact the installation, he said.

The hotline number is 973-724-TEST (8378).
Additional information about the removal project is available at

http://www.pica.army.mil/uxo/.

to prevent a reoccurrence and to assure that if there is a reoccurrence that it will immediately be detected. Picatinny Arsenal conducts vital research intended to improve the effectiveness and the survivability of our military. Whether or not the Arsenal currently conducts such research, research into the use of "smart munitions" that either intelligently adjust their trajectories or that subdivide into smaller munitions is crucial to the support of our fighting troops. In any case, a thorough investigation of this incident will require time and diverse resources. Due to the distance traveled bythe155mm artillery round fragment the recently concluded MMRP range and explosives debris dispersal field studies may have to be reevaluated’.