A construction crew at Redstone Arsenal found an unexploded mortar shell Tuesday morning. That evening, officials detonated it under controlled circumstances, a spokesperson has told AL.com.
"It was construction workers who were digging near a building, and they discovered one of these World War II era rounds in the ground and we called in an explosive ordnance disposal unit from Fort Benning, Georgia," the spokesperson said.
Workers found one 4.2mm white phosphorus mortar round while digging a sidewalk near building 6272, which houses a military directorate.
Officials assessed that the situation posed no immediate threat to the DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center's Software, Simulation, Systems Engineering and Integration Directorate (DEVCOM AvMC S3I) building. They established a safety perimeter and posted a monitoring team.
"We didn't disturbe the round, we made sure everybody had left the building, and then, yesterday evening we exploded it, and so it was safe disposal, and that was taken care of," the spokesperson said.
"We took it to a test area and exploded it."
The military installation said in a release yesterday it is prepared for an "occasional discovery of unexploded ordnance," based on Redstone's history as a World War II-era arsenal, and has protocols in place "to address these incidents safely."