Unexploded ordnance close to a former military training base in Amite County has been a danger to property owners since World War II. But now, 75 years later, help is on the way.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have contacted property owners in a swath of land near where Camp Van Dorn once was, and have requested their permission to survey the land.
The problem concerns grenades, mortars and other ordnance that were fired from the camp during training exercises dating back to the 1940s. Many landed without ever going off and remain buried below landowners’ feet.
Artillery shells have been popping up at least since the 1970s, Amite County Emergency Management Director Grant McCurley said.
McCurley got involved in the search after MDEQ presented an informational meeting concerning the possible dangers around Centreville about six months ago.
“I’ve been contacted a couple of times by landowners who have come across these shells. I’m sure there are many more out there. You’ve also got to consider that there could be more out there that folks haven’t informed us of,” he said.
MDEQ environmental scientist Richard Ball is working with the Corps in the matter. The Corps is tasked with the search and identification of the ordnance.
“It’s a tall order,” Ball said. “The population of the camp was bigger than Jackson at the time. There was a library, a hospital; it was a major facility, like a sister camp to Camp Shelby.”
To understand the present, you have to know the past, McCurley noted.
“You’ve got to remember, it was a different time back then. This was during the war. They aren’t going to be using the fake stuff. They needed to know what to use in the field, and the best way to do that was to test live artillery,” he said.
“I think they dropped more bombs on Mississippi than Japan,” Ball quipped, referring to the number of military facilities that opened up in the state during the war.
On Aug. 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered. Soon, the camp was sold to private owners.
“After the war was over, everyone picked up what they had and went home,” Ball said.
Since that time, property owners have moved in unaware of the potential danger.
“We’re now dealing with a new generation that has no idea that the camp was there. And if they do, they don’t naturally assume live ordnance could be buried beneath their feet,” Ball said.
McCurley illustrated the danger of the ordnance by an experience of his own.
Last year a landowner informed him that he had found what appeared to be a 155mm mortar shell on his property. It appeared to have been painted blue, McCurley said.
“It was a very large round,” McCurley said. “The landowner dug it up with a backhoe. He put it in a trailer and was about to drive off when he realized it was an artillery shell. He set it on the ground — carefully — and called us.”
Ordnance that was painted blue designated a training round, McCurley said. Normally, these present a very minimal risk of damage.
After a careful inspection of the shell, all in attendance — including an Army veteran and a bomb technician — concluded the round was indeed inert.
They were wrong.
When the tech detonated it in place, the explosion rocked the countryside. A contractor working over a mile away said shrapnel rained down on a tree beside him. He called authorities.
“It set off a massive blast wave. It surprised ... everybody. People were coming down the road on golf carts trying to figure out what had happened,” McCurley said.
The confusion was an easy mistake to make, McCurley said.
It stemmed from the factthat the copper framing of the ordnance had been underground for so long that it literally turned blue.
“It’s a matter of chemistry. Copper can turn that color over time, usually a greenish blue. Well, this one fooled me, the bomb tech, everyone,” McCurley said.
He still keeps a piece of the shrapnel on his desk.
Ball’s intent is to educate nearby residents of the danger, children in particular. He has yet to set a date for another informational meeting and is working with the Corps. Letters have been sent out to property owners spanning over 40,000 acres.
“They (the Corps) will be conducting a geophysical search looking for anomalies. They’ll mark the anomalies, then go back and investigate each one,” Ball said.
“We’re looking at a gambit of everything. That’ll include horseshoes, any metallic item.”
McCurley warned residents that despite the time that has gone by since the ordnance were last handled, “they are extremely dangerous.”
“Don’t pick it up. Unexploded artilery shells were of course meant to explode. Some of the rounds contain TNT and nitroglycerin. Over time nitroglycerin crystallizes. When the crystals rub together, it will explode,” he said.
If a military shell, or what looks like one, is found, McCurley advises residents to leave it where they found it and contact the Amite County Sheriff’s Department at 657-9057, or the Amite County Civil Defense and Emergency Management office at 657-1011.
