Grenade Range Management Using Lime for Dual Role of Metals Immobilization and Explosives Transformation. Field Demonstration at Fort Jackson, SC

The Department of Defense operates hundreds of hand grenade ranges (HGRs) for training purposes. Hand grenade training is a necessary function to maintain mission readiness for our nation's war fighters. Live fire training creates a potential source zone for munitions constituents such as metals and explosives. Fragmentation grenades, typically containing the high explosive composition B (60% RDX, 39% TNT) within a steel shell casing, constitute the majority of hand grenades used at fixed position ranges. Explosives have been detected in HGR soils at levels from the low parts per billion (micrograms/kiloggrams) up to percent levels. RDX has been detected in leachate waters below live fire HGRs and in surface waters leaving ranges. Two of the potential pathways for offsite migration of metals and explosives from HGR soil are transport in surface water and subsurface transport in leachate. Simple, innovative, and cost effective technologies are being developed which can break down munitions constituents quickly at the training sites and prevent residues from migrating to local surface water or groundwater supplies. The application of hydrated lime to an HGR to provide a mechanism for both metals immobilization and explosives transformation was demonstrated at the Fort Jackson, SC HGRs. The results indicate that application of lime can reduce the munitions constituent migration by transforming energetic compounds by over 90%. In addition, the metals are stabilized in the soil, with reduction in the concentrations of iron and zinc leaving the range via surface water and leachate. This technology demonstrated that application of lime is a low-cost treatment that can be incorporated into range management operations and practices.

Environmental Security Technology Certification Program. Prepared in collaboration with U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD; Applied Research Associates, Inc., Vicksburg, MS; ITAM-Shaw Environmental, Fort Jackson, SC; and the Energetics, Warheads, and Environmental Technology Research Division, U.S. Army RDECOM-ARDEC, Picatinny, NJ. The original document contains color images.