Restoration officials go “Heavy Metal”

  • Published
  • By Mike Spaits
  • 96th Air Base Wing Environmental Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Eglin Environmental Restoration officials are turning into real heavy metal artists - literally.

The Restoration Branch is shredding their way through 50,000 practice bombs and, so far, has recycled more than one million pounds of metal from the BDU 33's and Mark 106's.

The effort is part of the Air Force's Military Munitions Response Program. The mission of the AF MMRP is to take actions to ensure Munitions Response Areas and Munitions Response Sites located off of active test ranges are safe for reuse and to protect human health and the environment.

In this effort, the Restoration Branch and their contractors now use a commercial car crusher to "demilitarize" the practice bombs so they could be recycled. It's a unique agreement with the crushing company, the recyclers, and Eglin's contractors that resulted in savings of over $1 million.

"This method of demilitarizing the practice bombs cost us about $150,000 for the 1 million pounds shredded. Had we done it in a more traditional way the cost would have been between $1 and $2 million," said Ralph Armstrong, 96th Civil Engineer Group, Environmental Restoration project manager.

"Based on all of the information we found this is the first time this has been done in the United States," he added.

To date, Eglin's MMRP efforts have resulted in over seven million pounds of range debris metal being recycled, saving the government millions of dollars.

The Department of Defense launched the MMRP in 2004. Eglin has 24 sites managed under the AF MMRP, most of which are located within its 724-square mile land area.

Once this phase of operations is finished, which Eglin officials estimate may take several years to complete, a final MMRP report will be made available to the public.