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Unexploded munitions cleared at Vieques

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico — Observers winced as workers gave the signal Thursday to detonate a pile of old mortar shells and unexploded munitions on this former Navy bombing range that was once the focus of heated protest.

“Fire in the area!” came the shout as the first of four controlled blasts shook the ground, as the Navy began its cleanup project in Vieques, a tiny island of 9,000 residents, ringed by beaches and turquoise waters east of mainland Puerto Rico.

The 2,647 pounds of weaponry destroyed Thursday is a fiery reminder of the Naval Training Range, which was hammered for decades with live rounds from warships and planes, and is now scattered with piles of mangled metal.

The Navy finally agreed to close the range in April 2003, after years of protests against the danger and din of the practice bombing. But thousands of unexploded munitions were left behind, lurking under tropical foliage.

Now, contract workers are methodically clearing the site, overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency. The effort, begun in 2005, could take 10 years, and the Navy has set aside $200 million, officials said.

Reporters were invited to watch the destruction Thursday.

Outrage over the range began in 1999, when a Marine jet dropped two bombs off target, killing a local security guard and drawing the ire of islanders and celebrities including singer Ricky Martin, actor Edward James Olmos and New York politician Al Sharpton.

The Navy closed the range four years later, handing it over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Islanders have since sought to make the area a tourist destination.

In the first two years of cleanup, some 4.7 million pounds of scrap iron were recovered and melted down in large furnaces on the island, before being shipped to the U.S. mainland as scrap metal, said Chris Brown, a subcontractor with the environmental services firm of PIKA International Inc.

Still, just 775 acres of the 14,500-acre training range have been cleared, said Christopher Penny, head of the Vieques Restoration Program. Two-thirds of the site remains closed to the public because it is still peppered with unexploded munitions.