[CPEO-MEF] Old explosives, new jitters in Butner

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Old explosives, new jitters in Butner
Former Army post can't bury its past

By RICHARD STRADLING, Staff Writer

BUTNER - Nearly 60 years ago, Army soldiers preparing to fight World War
II fired a 37 mm shell over the Camp Butner artillery range, where it
landed in the soft earth. Two weeks ago, contractors for the Army came
back to detonate the shell under a pile of sandbags about 35 feet from
Kimberly and Danny Cash's house.

The shell is one of five pieces of live ammunition that the Army Corps
of Engineers has found since it began searching the old artillery range
last month. The corps is sampling a fraction of the 40,000-plus acres
that were part of Camp Butner to determine whether anything the Army
left behind poses a danger to people who live there now.

People have been turning up bullets and rusted fragments of grenades and
shells in their woods, fields and yards since the Army closed Camp
Butner in 1947 and sold more than half the land back to its original
owners.

For the full article:
http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1706060p-1722842c.html

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