[CPEO-MEF] Government seeks information about the Green River Ordnance Plant

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Illinois
SAUKVALLEY.COM
Government seeks information about the Green River Ordnance Plant
By Diane Markel
Published: Sunday, October 12, 2003

World War I ended more than 80 years ago.

World War II ended more than 60 years ago.

But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers still is investigating to see
whether former Department of Defense sites in this country may have
pollutants and need to be cleaned up.

One of those sites that is being investigated is the former Green River
Ordnance Plant in Lee County.

The time was the early 1940s. America was fighting the Second World War
of the last century. Arms and ammunition became a vital necessity, and
to try to meet that need, an entire industry grew up in what was once
Lee County farmland.

The attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, marked the active
involvement of the United States into World War II. On Jan. 11, 1942,
the Sterling Gazette reported that the federal government had surveyed
housing in the area and was looking at land south of Highway 30, as
Duane Paulsen wrote in the 1995 book "Memories of the Green River
Ordnance Plant 1942-1945."

The site eventually selected was in Amboy and Marion townships.
Construction on the Green River Ordnance Plant was started in April 1942
and completed in December 1942. The site included interconnected
buildings placed at a distance from each other for safety reasons. The
plant production included fuses, grenades, shells, bombs and bazooka
rockets.

"In addition to the munition lines, there were 'soup kitchens,' where
high explosives called TETRYL and Pentolite were melted in large vats
and then went through a blending process for easy pouring into
projectiles," Paulsen wrote.

This article can be viewed at:
http://ww2.saukvalley.com/news/278860635382714.bsp

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