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Thursday, May 6, 2004

The tunnel opened around 5:45 a.m., after Army disposal crews removed 10 of 11 bombs uncovered at the site and took them to Aberdeen Proving Ground in northeastern Maryland. The remaining bomb was later deemed safe to move and was to be taken there also, officials said.

The bombs were found in a pile of dirt at an old salvage yard. A construction worker discovered five Wednesday morning while excavating as part of a state project to prepare the site for redevelopment. Others were found later. The bombs ranged in size from 500 to 4,000 pounds.

Col. Tim Madere of Aberdeen Proving Ground said the bombs might have come from the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, dismantled at the site in the 1990s.

"That's the supposition right now, that they were on the USS Coral Sea, the aircraft carrier that was taken apart here," he said at a news conference.

The investigation was continuing.

In 1997, the company contracted by the Navy to break up the ship, Seawitch Salvage Inc., and its owner, Kerry Ellis, were convicted of violating the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and other counts for removing asbestos in an unsafe manner and pouring oil into the Patapsco River. Ellis was sentenced to 2.5 years in federal prison. It was the nation's first criminal case involving environmental violations by the ship-scrapping industry.

"We'll start this investigation from scratch, recognizing what happened previously," said Maryland Transportation Authority Police Chief Gary McLhinney.

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Editor's note: