VERNON, BC, CANADA

Internet Search Keywords: K&L Land Partnership, UXO, DND

The Commonage Lands, once part of the Canadian Armed Forces Camp Vernon, was established in 1911. At that time, over 10,000 ha of land was set aside as a military training area which performed both practice and live fire ammunition exercises. As this land became privately owned, several cases involving public citizens and Unexploded Explosive Ordnance (UXO) have occurred. As a result, the Commonage Lands became known as a UXO Legacy Site, as defined by the Legacy Sites Program, Department of National Defence (DND).

Military ammunitions that have been identified by the DND as potential ordnance that could be present in and around the municipality of Vernon include: Grenades, Mortars, Anti-tank projectile rounds; and Projector Infantry Anti Tank (PIAT) rounds.

The Commonage project was the first UXO clearance of it’s kind on private land. The land owner of the 544 ha parcel entered into a land settlement agreement with the DND to have MRS perform a geophysical survey and full UXO clearance of the property. The effort took 6.5 years to complete.

At its conclusion, over 10,000 individual pieces of expended munitions scrap were recovered from the site. Thirty (30) live UXO were discovered and rendered inert through controlled demolition via shaped charge explosives in safe environments. The entire clean up amounted to over 2 tones of munitions scrap being removed from the property.

3” Mortar Demo

MRS executed 30 demolitions of live UXO rounds during the Commonage project. All UXO were rendered inert through controlled demolition via shaped charge explosives in safe mitigated environments.