Typically obscured by a veil of national security, officials shed light Wednesday on the Crane Army Ammunition Activity to showcase the work they envision fostering job growth on the base.
Established in 1977 and located on more than 51,000 acres near the junction of Interstate 69 and U.S. 231, the Army-run portion of the Crane military base far exceeds the space used by the Navy. The 80 percent of the base dedicated to the Ammunition Activity produces, stores and distributes approximately a quarter of the U.S. Department of Defense’s conventional munitions. Valued at $9.8 billion, those munitions include pyrotechnic flares, illumination candles, components including bombs and other explosives and much more.
During the Crane Army Demilitarization media day, Col. James Hooper, commander of the activity, explained the need for transparency and how the base’s enigmatic nature has been a help for security and a hindrance to the public’s understanding of what the base’s 740 civilian workers and three military officials are doing with everyone’s tax dollars. Wednesday’s tour highlighted the base’s demilitarization of ammunition, which makes up a fourth of the Army’s activities on base, along with distribution, storage and production efforts.
“We’ve decided to be a little more aggressive in educating the public,” Hooper said.
Ammunition goes through life cycles just like anything else that’s manufactured, he said. Some munitions have degraded to the point of failure; some are so old the weapons to fire them have gone out of production; and some are still operable but must be destroyed to satisfy international treaties dictating stockpile quantities.
The current systems in place to dispose of ordnance include an 80-acre demolition range, a 40-acre open burning ground and phosphorus processing facilities that can’t be found anywhere else. In destroying the ammunition, the Ammunition Activity is able to sustain itself with revenue generated from the recycled materials. Recovered metals are inspected and sent to Bedford Recycling, while white phosphorus salvaged from countermeasure decoy flares is superheated and turned into phosphoric acid to be used for agricultural purposes, such as fertilizer. Metal components from 1970s grenades can be re-used to create new training munitions for a third of the price of a new round.