Special military bomb squad sent to Hanford. Here’s what they had to blow up

Part of an old military shell was blown up at the Hanford nuclear reservation early Tuesday morning.

Workers assigned to routine surveying and excavation work at the site found an artillery fuse on the ground Monday afternoon and notified the Hanford Patrol.

They were in the 200 East Area of central Hanford near the 200 East Hill, according to Benton County Fire District 1 information from the Hanford Site Emergency Operations Center.

The patrol brought out a K-9 dog team and determined there was no explosive in the fuse, or detonation cap, for what was later identified as an 125 mm anti aircraft shell.

It likely was left by U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Camp Hanford during the site’s early years, according to the Department of Energy.

But protocol still required its disposal.

After determining the fuse was old, military-grade munitions, the Richland bomb squad referred Hanford officials to personnel with the 53rd Ordnance Co., part of the Joint Base Lewis McChord 3rd Ordnance Battalion. The company is based at the Yakima Training Center.

The unit responded with a team of three military members, according to an Army spokesman.

The Hanford Patrol set up an isolation zone and road blocks. Around 1 a.m. the military team detonated the fuse and disposed of it.

Workers already had surveyed the area for radioactive contamination prior to starting excavation work.

The 580-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program. Now environmental cleanup is underway at the site.

This story was originally published August 1, 2023 at 5:17 PM.