Courtesy
Soldiers practice shooting at the Nellis Small Arms Range in 1951.
Monday, Nov. 6, 2017 | 2 a.m.
With only 558,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in history’s bloodiest conflict still living, World War II feels increasingly remote; a war remembered less in people’s hearts than in brief memorial services and movies.
But in Las Vegas, just a short walk from the 215 Beltway and not far from residential neighborhoods and a casino, lie shell casings, .50-caliber bullets and crumpled practice bombs. The 46,953-acre site in the northwest valley is the Nellis Small Arms Range, though 75 years ago it was a gunnery school for pilots in the Army Air Forces.
On Oct. 25, the Army Corps of Engineers staged an open house at the Aliante Casino and Hotel to show how it’s working to clean up a 2,014-acre portion of the site so that eventually, UNLV can build a satellite campus there.
“If the land wasn’t going to be transferred to UNLV, it’s not likely that much else would be done to it,” said Thomas J. Field, chief of public affairs for the Corps’ Los Angeles District. “If people were generally just hiking, then it could be handled by signs and brochures.”
SITE HISTORY
Young men from across the country traveled to the gunnery school in the Las Vegas Valley to learn how to shoot in general and, more specifically, how to operate the turrets and machine guns on bombers that protected the planes as they flew to and from German and Japanese targets.
Materials used on the parcel going to UNLV:
• Shotguns: Familiarized soldiers with basic combat shooting at stationary and moving targets. Environmental concern: Fragments of clay targets containing chemicals shown to be carcinogenic
• .30- and .50-caliber machine guns: Soldiers trained with these rapid-fire weapons, which were used on bombers to defend against enemy aircraft. Environmental concern: Lead-based ammunition scrap
Materials used on the larger arms range
• 37mm anti-aircraft autocannon: These towable weapons were used to defend against bombers and other enemy aircraft attacking ground targets. Environmental concern: Lead-based ammunition scrap
• Jet-Assisted TakeOff (JATO) bottles: Rockets were attached to some airplanes to help them take off if they were heavily loaded or operating from runways shorter than what was considered safe for that particular aircraft. The solid fuel bottles made of aluminum or steel were jettisoned. Environmental concern: Remnants remain on the range
• Fuel tanks: External tanks made of aluminum or steel carried fuel to extend the range of military aircraft, and empty ones were dropped to cut drag and weight, and boost maneuverability. Environmental concern: Remnants remain on the range
• Practice bombs: These duds made of lightweight sheet metal were filled with sand weighing 100 pounds. During WWII, each was fitted with a small “spotting” charge that exploded on impact, creating a smoke cloud visible from the airplane so airmen could judge their accuracy. Environmental concern: Remnants remain on the range
Students began their lessons on the range shooting at targets. After mastering the basics, they would progress to the .30- and .50-caliber machine guns used on the bombers, and sometimes 37mm anti-aircraft weapons.
The Army Air Forces even mounted turrets on B-17 and B-29 bombers so the airmen could realistically practice shooting at moving targets.
Some of the land in the original parcel (outside of what is going to UNLV) was used as an emergency drop area for military planes landing at the airfield that would become Nellis Air Force Base. The planes released fuel tanks and practice bombs prior to landing.
CLEANUP EFFORT
The site’s former life means remediation is still needed to enable its future life, even though the military already has mounted several cleanup efforts.
According to the Army Corps of Engineers webpage dedicated to the project, “a certificate of clearance was issued in 1953 for 26,000 acres of the range. In 1954, 25,620 acres were transferred to the Bureau of Land Management, and in 1961, 10,758 acres were transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Large amounts of munitions were removed and disposed of during subsequent range clearance activities conducted in 1972, 1977, 1978 and 1995.”
If the land remained undeveloped, another cleanup wouldn’t be needed. But construction of UNLV’s new satellite campus will require excavation for foundations and utilities, so the Corps is working through a multiyear process to mitigate the leftovers of WWII-era target practice through its Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) program.
Step 1: Searching historical records to find out exactly what occurred on the site. That step took roughly a year to complete for the Las Vegas site.
Step 2: Remedial investigation. Technicians with ground-surveying magnetometers, and a team of biologists, chemists, groundwater experts, geophysicists, explosives experts and archeologists (if Native American artifacts are found) catalog the exact state of the site. The Corps is currently in this phase.
Step 3: Studying the feasibility of cleaning up the site, given its state and the land’s potential future uses. According to FUDS Project Manager Randy Tabije, the remedial investigation and feasibility study each take a year to complete. Tabije said cleanup probably wouldn’t happen for several years, if not longer, depending on what is discovered.
POTENTIAL RISK
Cleanup is expected to be largely environmental: sweeping the site for scraps of munitions made of lead (which can leach into soil) and pieces of clay targets (which at the time contained toxic chemicals).
Tabije and James Hug, a FUDS ordnance and explosives safety specialist, both said the chance of finding unexploded materials is small. Target bombs and other items that might still be explosive were mostly dropped elsewhere on the site and often were destroyed on impact.
However, Hug is part of the team for a reason. He said there is a strict procedure for dealing with remnants that could be dangerous.
“If we encounter something that has an explosive hazard to it, we will detonate it in place,” Hug said. “Or if there’s a biological or cultural concern in the immediate area, we may move it to somewhere else within the area that we are working on ... (to) detonate it. If we find something that’s completely empty or completely inert, and doesn’t have anything hazardous, then it will be demilitarized, which means it is cut up or deformed.”
Such neutralized munitions are certified as being free of hazards.
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