“If you ever come across anything suspicious like this item, please do not pick it up, contact your local law e enforcement agency for assistance”.
If North Vancouver’s Blair Rifle Range lands sound like a warzone in the weeks ahead, that wouldn’t be too far off. Department of National Defence contractors have resumed their search for unexploded ordnance or UXO from the recreational area’s time as a military site between the 1930s and 1960s. After surveying the Blair Rifle Range lands with metal detectors in 2018, the UXO team found about 200 kilograms of mortar shells, practice rounds and grenade components along the area’s trails and a half-metre buffer on either side. “In 2018, when we went to the site, there was a really urgent need to go ahead and make the area safe for your site users. That was a very high priority. We addressed that high risk by clearing the trails in the open areas,” said Debbie Nicholls, senior project manager DND’s UXO program at a community information meeting on Monday, adding that the off-trail and forested areas on the southern portion of the site are now considering “medium risk” for intrusive activities. “(We are back) just to add that extra level of safety for the community by going ahead and removing the items that are in the forest,” she said. If and when the contractors’ metal detectors pick up anything potentially dangerous, explosives experts from Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt will be called in to safely deal with them. That could include carting them away for disposal or safely detonating them at the site. “So, if you hear a big boom, that’s what it is,” Nicholls said. When that happens, Nicholls said they will close off the trails and alert the nearby community first. North Vancouver historian Donna Sacuta, who published a history of the Blair Rifle Range in 2015, said she was pleased to learn the UXO team would be back as she didn’t think the 2018 search was thorough enough. “They’ll find more unexploded ordnances, for sure and it will, I think, leave more questions,” she said. “How much of the geography will they cover?” DND’s admittedly incomplete official records only ever indicated that the range was used for rifle and small arms target practice. But Sacuta said, in her research, she came by a 1972 report that included information from an officer who insisted there was a munitions or grenades dump north of where the original shooting range targets were, which is outside where the current search is focused, she said. “And that has never been investigated,” she said, adding that another report from 1995 acknowledged that the dump may be out there, but stated that the terrain was too difficult to carry out a search.
Mounties are reminding anyone who comes across explosives or live ammunition to call police for assistance and to not handle them yourself.
Dear editors, Biography of a bomb is aimed at highlighting the danger caused by unexploded bombs. Moreover, the most important aspect is that we work completely non profit, raising awerness about this topic is what drives us. We apologize if we make use of pictures in yours articles, but we need them to put a context in how findings are done. We will (and we always do) cite source and author of the picture. We thank you for your comprehension
