[CPEO-MEF] MUNITIONS: "Army to scrap tungsten bullets"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Army to scrap tungsten bullets

By George Brennan
Cape Cod Times (MA)
September 11, 2008

Once billed as the green alternative to lead bullets, tungsten bullets 
are now on the scrap heap.

The Department of Defense is taking bids in an online auction through 
tomorrow for 190,000 pounds of tungsten from its Army Ammunition Plant 
in Missouri. The auction includes pieces of the bullets in various 
stages of production, but none are the ready-to-shoot finished product.

The fire sale is likely prompted by a 2006 discovery at Camp Edwards 
that powder from the tungsten bullets was leaching into the sandy soil 
of the Massachusetts Military Reservation. A groundwater sample taken 
that year beneath one of the small-arms ranges showed concentrations as 
high as 560 parts per billion. One part per billion is equal to a half 
teaspoon in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.



...

For the entire article, see
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080911/NEWS/809110313/-1/NEWSLETTER100

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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