Grenade Range Management Using Lime for Dual Role of Metals Immobilization and Explosives Transformation Treatability

See also ADM002075. Presented at the Army Science Conference (25th) Held 27-30 Nov 2006 in Orlando, FL.

The importance of live fire training for US forces cannot be overestimated. The success of our armed forces depends upon realistic training utilizing the actual weapons and munitions that will be used in theatre during strategic and tactical operations. However, a drawback of this type of realistic training is the potential contamination of firing ranges. Most munitions-contaminated soils found on training ranges contain a mixture of compounds. For hand grenade ranges (HGR), the prevalent munition used is the fragmentation grenade, typically composed of an iron shell and Composition B explosive material. Studies performed on ranges in both the United States and Canada have shown that there is a large degree of variability in munitions constituent type, concentration, size, and spatial distribution occurring on single ranges, as well as between different ranges. Contaminants present include explosive residue in the form of Composition B and Trinitrotolene as well as metals such as zinc, iron, manganese, calcium, lead, chromium, copper, nickel, molybdenum, vanadium, and tin. The optimum treatment technology for successful remediation of distributed energetics and metals at training ranges should be inexpensive, easily applied in remote locations, effective on heterogeneous contaminant distributions, effective over large areas, effective on multiple compounds, be non-intrusive, to the extent possible, and able to be incorporated into normal range maintenance operations. Technologies currently available for the remediation of munitions-contaminated soil and groundwater do not meet these criteria. The objectives of this study were to evaluate and develop a cost effective management technology to control active grenade range contaminant mobility and promote on-site contaminant degradation.