12 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY May 18-24, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com On Friday, April 21, the day before Earth Day, staff from the Marina Coast Water District and other volunteers were planting trees at Hilltop Park in Marina. The park, which is not really a park yet, is just a stone’s throw away from nearby houses in the Dunes development—it was conceived to be part of that development. Around 11am, just before the planting event was set to end, a Marina Coast employee uncovered ordnance—a potentially explosive device— while digging. That piece of ordnance, says MCWD General Manager Rem Scherzinger, was then moved to a pile of scrap metal—rebar, car shocks—and other debris uncovered throughout the morning’s event, during which staff and volunteers put almost 900 trees and plants in the ground. Scherzinger thought it might be a hazard, and asked someone to call the local Base Realignment and Closure office. John Short, deputy chief of the CSU Monterey Bay Police Department, soon arrived at the scene. Tom Moore, a Marina Coast board member who served for 30 years in the Army, says it is “a little bit surprising” that ordnance was found at the site, because it was “never a firing point or a place anyone shot at.” Moore recalls that there were military exercises decades ago—World War II era, he presumes—when ships in Monterey Bay would fire rounds into Fort Ord, and says some of them could be buried 20 feet deep in sandy soil. Munitions removal continues on large swaths of the former Fort Ord. But there was never an unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance of the Hilltop site, which the Army conveyed to the city of Marina in 2006. Jason No, a community outreach specialist with Chenega, a private contractor now administering the cleanup operations at Fort Ord, says there was no initial evidence of, or any reason to think there would be, UXO on the site, “so it was determined a munitions cleanup was not necessary.” In this case, the ordnance was not explosive—a determination Short made on site—so the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad was never notified. Nor was Chenega—it was only when the Weekly started asking questions that No learned it happened. Ditto for the Marina Police Department. “With these properties, once we transfer to a local jurisdiction, they’re not obligated to tell us if they find anything,” No says. “But we do ask them to do that.” No says a Chenega mechanical specialist, looking at a photo of the ordnance, thinks it was the propulsion part of a 3.5-inch rocket from the Korean War or Vietnam War era. In other words, there was no longer any explosive attached to it. But there is always the possibility that more UXO is out there—about 10 to 15 years ago, No recalls, someone in northeast Marina dug up two live hand grenades in their backyard, and on April 19, the county bomb squad responded to a report of ordnance dug up at 8th Street and Second Avenue in Marina. It turned out to be just a piece of foam made to look like ordnance, once used for training. Bomb Away Ordnance was uncovered in Marina on land long ago cleared by the Army. How did that happen? By David Schmalz The ordnance uncovered by a Marina Coast Water District employee on a treeplanting event April 21 was not explosive, fortunately. NEWS “It was determined a munitions cleanup was not necessary.” COURTESY OF MARINA PD Come see the most luxurious mattresses in California. VISIT OUR SHOWROOM faCtory priCes direCt to Consumers. any day by appointment 26384 Carmel Rancho Ln., #103 Carmel-by-the-Sea 831.899.5464 monterey-mattress.com CAN YOU SOLVE THE MYSTERY BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT? Follow the rabbit. Rob the bank. Travel through time to save the world....and many more. A 60 minute adventure, 9 rooms to choose from each with a different theme. Great for birthdays or special events. Kid friendly. All locations surrounded by great local restaurants. 4 MONTEREY LOCATIONS 765 Wave St, Ste A2 • 599 Lighthouse Ave • 700 Cannery Row, Ste DD and Oscar’s Playground 685 Cannery Row 831.241.6616 BOOK TODAY! Escaperoom831.com Voted Monterey County’s Best Place For a Birthday Party Two Years in a Row ’22
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