Daily Sitka Sentinel

Experts Defusing Risk of Old Blasting Charge

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    A section of Sawmill Creek Road may be closed off for short periods of time starting 8 a.m. Saturday while ordnance disposal experts from Anchorage investigate what may be an unexploded dynamite charge left over from a road project three decades ago.
    The experts were called in Thursday after a contractor digging in the 100 block of Lance Drive discovered a hole with blasting cap wires coming out of it.
    “They recognized them as detonation wires,” Sitka Fire Department Chief Dave Miller said.
    From information gathered so far, the wires are believed to have been left from a road clearing project more than 30 years ago, Miller said.
    “These things just seem to show up,” the chief said.
    He contacted the 716th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit from Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in Anchorage to help out.
    Sgt. 1st Class Marshall Pratt, Staff Sgt. Andrew McGowin and Specialist Matthew Fannon arrived Thursday night on a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 based at Kodiak.
    Around 10:30 p.m. three homes in the immediate area were evacuated, and residents of a fourth home moved downstairs while the area was cordoned off. The crew did some exploratory work using improvised materials – including a spoon, a broom handle and shop vac – before wrapping it up for the night around 1 a.m. to allow residents to return to their homes.
    “We found we couldn’t dig down deep enough,” Pratt said. “We couldn’t get to the end of the wires, to see where the cap wires led to.”
    One of the main concerns, besides the proximity of the houses, is a tree growing above the rock where the wires were found “that’s posing a danger.”  The ordnance disposal experts said that if there is dynamite in the hole and it went off, the tree would fall. There are power lines on one side of the tree.
    The city hired a professional tree faller to cut down the tree to clear the work area for the ordnance crew.
    City Administrator Mark Gorman met at 11:30 a.m. today with representatives of the electric, water and public works departments, along with Assistant Fire Chief Al Stevens, the EOD team and police department, to formulate a plan for dealing with the explosive risk.
    The area is currently cordoned off with tape, accompanied by orange warning signs.
    Work will resume at 8 a.m. Saturday. Officials said there may be intermittent road closures in that section of Sawmill Creek Road.
    Pratt said the wires are about three feet beneath the road surface. He said it appears that the person doing the blasting stopped for some reason after placing the dynamite and the project was covered up with the unexploded charge left behind.
    He said the strategy he plans to use is to dig to the charges, dissolve them in acetone and burn the residue.