Air Force pilots, with some regularity during their exercises above federal land in Utah's western desert, drop "dummy" bombs with small charges that don't detonate.
The charges in those bombs are supposed to go off so Air Force "spotters" can identify how accurate pilots are in hitting their targets. When they don't explode, they need to be destroyed.
The Air Force was recently granted a 90-day "emergency hazardous waste treatment" permit to go onto the range and blow up the dummies where they're found instead of having to take them someplace else for disposal.
With regard to the explosive power of a typical dummy bomb's charge, "It's not really very big," said Wayne Downs, hazardous waste program manager for Hill Air Force Base.
But in his April 13 letter to permit applicant Hill Air Force Base, Utah Solid and Hazardous Waste Control Board executive secretary Dennis Downs (no relation to Wayne) wrote, "The ordnance can be unstable and needs to be treated immediately to avoid any additionally potentially dangerous contact with the explosive items."
A Salt Lake City-based military watchdog, Citizens Education Project, is concerned that what's being issued is a "blanket" permit. The group's director, Stephen Erickson, said it would mean the Air Force wouldn't need to apply for a separate permit if it found potentially more hazardous, larger — albeit more rare — ordnance dating back to World War II. Other than that, he said the permit's on-site detonation allowance helps keep Air Force workers safe.
The 90-day permits are issued through the Utah Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste, which monitors how the Air Force handles its own debris and spent weaponry it finds on the Utah Test and Training Range's 2,675 square miles of ground, composed of several testing ranges.
The UTTR also includes more than 19,000 square miles of restricted "special use" air space, according to the Los Angeles-based Center For Land Use Interpretation. The Center estimates the Air Force conducts more than 22,000 training sorties (one sortie equals one mission by a single aircraft) annually within UTTR boundaries.
Last year a state regulator visited the UTTR 11 times, in part to make sure the Air Force was complying with the terms of its 90-day permits. Wayne Downs said Hill officials want to be open with the public, to create an ongoing trust and to avoid even the perception that they're trying to hide something.
"There's nothing really extraordinary, other than these bomb dummy units," he said about the 90-day permits.
Dennis Downs is authorized by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to sign off on Hill's permit applications. Hill Air Force Base is the primary user of the UTTR and "routinely" applies for the 90-day permits.
"It's just cheaper for us to do it that way," said Wayne Downs.
It would cost $20,000 for a "continuous" permit, which would still require an annual renewal process and fee. Instead, the Air Force spends about $1,000 on each 90-day permit.
The most recent permit issued runs from April 15 until July 13. It covers both the UTTR's 388,000-acre North Range, located north of I-80 in Tooele and Box Elder counties, and its South Range, which includes the Army's Dugway Proving Ground. The permit also covers areas the Air Force calls "formerly used defense sites."
At any site on the UTTR, explosive ordnance disposal workers from Hill make the determination whether to detonate the ordnance where they find it or move it for handling at the Thermal Treatment Unit, located in the UTTR's North Range. The just-issued state permit is required for detonating munitions where they're found.
"That's their business — that's what they're trained to do," said Scott Anderson, manager of the hazardous waste branch of the state Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste.
If the ordnance is deemed too dangerous to move, Anderson added, the Air Force is permitted to blow it up on the spot. That eliminates the danger to military personnel.
Public access is supposed to be restricted on UTTR grounds, but it's unknown just how much of the entire range is explored by people who may not encounter a sign or fence and are unaware they are on UTTR property, Anderson said. Wayne Downs said he has heard of people who ignore fences and take off-road vehicles into the UTTR.
When ordnance is known to exist on actual public land near the UTTR, like areas maintained by the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers usually becomes the entity responsible for how to handle cleanup and disposal efforts. Those areas might include the formerly used defense sites mentioned in the permit.
On private land, it's a different matter.
In recent years one family in particular has been fighting a losing battle in federal court over cleaning up more than 1,400 acres of their land near Dugway that, in 1945, the Army leased and left littered with ordnance. Last month U.S. District Court Judge Dee Benson threw out the case filed in 2005 by siblings Louise, Douglas and Allan Cannon. The Cannons had been suing to get the government to clean up the mess, which they say includes debris from chemical weapons.
Since World War II the military has conducted tests using live bombs both on Dugway property and beyond current boundaries of the Rhode Island-size installation, which is mostly surrounded by the UTTR. Today Dugway's role is as a chemical and biological defense testing facility, which doesn't require the use of live bombs.
It's rare, however, that WWII-era ordnance is found within the UTTR, according to Wayne Downs. He said most of the known older ordnance on the UTTR was located in dump sites, most of which have been cleaned up.
In 1994 the federal government released a report that said the potential for unexploded ordnance existed on more than 7 million acres of public land in the United States. Most of that land, the report noted, is located in the West.
E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com