Labs Search for Unexploded Ordnance

It’s a local twist to a nationwide problem: Potential unexploded ordnance (UXO) at old bombing ranges.

Several intact 250-pound bombs recently discovered during a construction project at the old Kirtland bombing range near Double Eagle Airport on Albuquerque’s west mesa have since been safely removed from the area.

A complete site survey was conducted by a team from Sandia National Laboratories and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The excavation was part of an expansion of the Eclipse Aviation facility near Double Eagle Airport for installation of water and power lines. The survey of the Kirtland site, one of the national Wide Area Assessment (WAA) sites, was initiated and funded by the Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) and the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP).

The survey showed no evidence of any target areas south of the runways.

“This southern portion of the site completely encompasses the area in which Eclipse Aviation is expanding, so good news for them,” says Sean McKenna, Sandia project team leader. “We did identify several other potential target areas north of the airport; some of these turned out to be geological noise such as magnetic rocks. About three of them turned out to be legitimate potential ordnance target areas.”

The team used LiDAR (light detection and ranging) imagery to remotely characterize the Kirtland site and the imagery revealed several features indicative of UXO targets. The LiDAR provided a high-resolution topographic map of the area and focused on old targets such as concentric circles, a ship outline, and other areas of interest, McKenna says.

Overall, as much as 20 million acres of land in the United States —that’s about half the size of Maine— could possibly contain UXO. The unexploded ordnance is left over from wars as well as from decades of live-fire training and practice in the United States.

“UXO presents a discrete and acute health hazard, but not the same as the land-mine problem,” says Barry Roberts, a member of the team. The Kirtland site was used for training during and after WWII.

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