13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Indiana eyed as bunker-buster weapons testing site

Indiana eyed as bunker-buster weapons testing site

The United States government is considering testing a bunker-buster weapon right here in Indiana. It would involve an underground explosion of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate. The weapon test scheduled for the Nevada dessert could move to an abandoned quarry near Mitchell.

Divine Strake, as the project is known, is a $23 millionexplosive test designed for a Nevada Test site which has now been postponed indefinitely because of local opposition. "Is there a better place for these tests? I'm not going to say. I don't think there is any good place to do these tests," said a protester at the Arizona site.

But the Defense Threat Reduction Agency told a Las Vegas newspaper it is reviewing two other sites it has already used like White Sands, New Mexico and the a quarry site near Bedford, Indiana.

"Explosives and things connected with explosives are fairly common place in this area with this being so close to the Crane Naval Base," said Mayor Joe Klumpp, Bedford.

Word has also spread to the south in Mitchell, where more people would be affected than in Bedford. That is because the government has already conducted tests using up to 1.5 tons of explosives in the Rogers Quarry near Mitchell. It's front page news in Lawrence County because the bunker buster test will use the equivalent of 593 tons of TNT which could send a plume of dust 10,000 feet into the air. The goal is to see if shock waves can destroy underground tunnels like the one constructed for the Nevada test.

"For here it sure would be shaking the ground, I would think. Something that sizeable. We get sizeable explosions from Crane from time to time when they set off old ammunition but that is nothing like what this would be so I'm not sure what the reaction would be from the people till we found out if they are going to do this or not," said Mayor Butch Chastain, Mitchell.

Mayor Chastain says he has not been contacted about the possibility but says he would like to hold public hearings to give residents a chance to publicly discuss it.

A spokesperson for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency says this is all premature. An assessment of alternative sites is currently underway and there is no timeline for when that will be completed. Indiana 4th District Congressman Steve Buyer's office says while Indiana has a proud military heritage the state needs to be educated about this project and its possibilities.