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Hernando Today

Search Continues For WWII Ordnance

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: August 26, 2008

Updated: 08/26/2008 10:25 am

BROOKSVILLE - Teresa Kotch has a little more peace of mind now that a rocket found in her front yard has been blown to bits.

Around last Thanksgiving, a contractor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detonated a 2.36-inch rocket that had been buried for more than 50 years in what is now her yard on Greenwood Street, about a half mile north of High Point.

Kotch has refused to do any gardening or other yard projects since she learned two years ago that her property was once part of the Brooksville Turret Gunnery Range and that officials believed there was still unexploded ordnance there. The Department of Defense used the 10,000-acre range as a training ground for soldiers during World War II.

"You have to be out of your mind to go out and dig when something could be two feet underground," Kotch said. "You don't even want to put a badminton pole in the ground."

The Corps has wrapped up a portion of the second phase of a search for ordnance in two areas totaling 53 acres. One is on the east side of Weeping Willow Street and one on the west side.

Corps officials will host a meeting to update residents from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 11, at Central High School, 14075 Ken Austin Parkway in Brooksville.

Letters from the Corps are hitting mailboxes in the area to notify residents of the progress and the upcoming meeting.

Since July of last year and into this summer, a contractor has pulled hundreds of pieces of metal from the ground discovered using high-powered metal detectors, according to an interim report on the project.

Of those, 12 were rockets. Ten were practice rounds. The other two, however, were deemed "highly explosive," including one in Kotch's yard and one on her neighbor's property.

Corps officials say they are moving away from suspected practice targets where the buried ordnance is concentrated.

During the first phase of the project completed in 2006, workers unearthed 5,500 metal objects on 188 acres; 54 of the rockets contained explosives.

The Corps is now working in 60 acres of undeveloped land north of Greenwood and west of Weeping Willow, said spokeswoman Amanda Ellison.

The Department of Defense conducted a cleanup operation after the range was closed following the war.

When a resident unearthed a bazooka round in more recent years, it prompted officials to go back and look again.

The corps has spent nearly $7.1 million on the project and has budgeted another $462,000 for this year.

Kotch wasn't around when crews from Parsons, the Corps contractor, detonated the suspected high explosive round using explosives of their own, but her boyfriend said sandbags "flew higher than the trees."

"And I've got pretty high trees," she said.

She said she won't do any gardening until she gets an all-clear letter from the Corps. The undeveloped parcel crews are working the borders on her property to the north.

Elvira Bodtmann is Kotch's neighbor. She watched from the street as crews detonated the rocket in her yard.

The 85-year-old seemed to take the threat - and the bang - in stride.

"At my age, it takes more than that to bother me," she said.

To find out more about the project, call 800-291-9413 or visit www.saj.usace.army.mil.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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