When They Say 'No Trespassing...'

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California
MONTEREY HERALD
When They Say 'No Trespassing...'
Ord ordnance exploded as warning
By Dan Laidman, dlaidman@montereyherald.com
Posted on Fri, Mar. 05, 2004

Imagine the creepy neighbor of countless children's stories who chases
the protagonists with a pitchfork, or a shovel, or a shotgun, shouting
"Get off my property!"

When the Army wants you to keep out, it sends a message with a little
more firepower.

Authorities invited local media to watch crews blow up unexploded
ordnance swept up from Fort Ord on Thursday. They hope that images of
three stacks of munitions bursting into flames with a heavy boom will
show that progress is being made to remove the ordnance, and also that
trespassers should beware, or risk being blown up.

"It's still a dangerous area and we want people to stay out of here,"
said Gail Youngblood, environmental coordinator for the Base Realignment
and Closure Commission.

The vast landscape of Fort Ord is littered in many places with
ammunition left over from decades of military training operations. Some
of it remains hazardous. The Army has conducted a series of prescribed
burns to clear vegetation so it can locate and remove the ordnance.

One such 500-acre fire last October jumped its boundaries and scorched
1,000 additional acres by accident. The Army announced this week that it
finished removing ordnance from the area, recovering more than 500
explosives considered dangerous plus more than 145,000 pounds of debris.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/local/8113584.htm

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