Holston Army Ammunition Plant, Tennessee The U.S. Army announced plans to use a new explosive called IMX-101 to replace TNT in artillery rounds. The goal is to completely replace TNT in all large caliber munitions by 2023. The Army ordered approximately $780 million worth of it so far in an effort to make battlegrounds safer for troops.

The new explosives are part of a class called Insensitive Munitions eXplosives or IMX. IMX-101 reportedly has the same explosive power as TNT, but it is less dangerous for handlers. It was developed by BAE Systems in partnership with the Army. BAE Systems has the contract to run Holston Army Ammunition Plant, a GOCO (Government Owned Contractor Operated) facility.

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McIntosh County, Georgia The Marine Corps released the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that evaluated potential environmental impacts of acquiring additional property and constructing the necessary infrastructure to allow the use of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) at Townsend Bombing Range . The Final EIS supported the alternative to procure 28,630 acres and the construction of six new target areas.

If the range expansion happens, it would significantly increase the size of the current range by over 6.5 times its current size. Notice of the Final EIS was posted in the Federal Register and is subject to a 30-day waiting period before the Marine Corps can take any action to implement the selected alternative.

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La Mesa, California A home inspector was shocked when he discovered two military bombs in the crawl space of a house he was inspecting. The man reported the find to the police. La Mesa police, fire department, and the sheriff's bomb squad unit were summoned to the scene to inspect the items.

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Hawthorne, Nevada Seven Marines were killed and another seven were wounded during a training exercise at Hawthorne Army Depot. The names of the deceased have not been released pending notifications of family members. The cause of the accident is under investigation and very few details have been released. The munition involved in the explosion was reported to be a 60mm mortar. Pending the investigation, the military has pulled all HE and illumination mortars that shared the same lot numbers from training and war zone stockpiles.

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Topeka, Kansas Kansas State Fire Marshal Doug Jorgensen hopes to reinstate some explosive storage regulations which were apparently accidentally eliminated in 2010. In addition, there are plans to create new rules to better track the explosives industry. For example, new regulations would require new licenses every three years and annual inspections of explosives storage sites.

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Red Cliff, Wisconsin Last summer the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior (a Chippewa Tribe) and their support contractor recovered 25 barrels from the Lake Superior Barrel Dump Site under a DoD funded project. The barrels reportedly contain thousands of old detonators but the Tribe was unable to properly dispose of the material since there are no federally approved facilities authorized to receive hazardous explosive materials on the Great Lakes.

The Tribe did not have the proper permits in place to transport the material on land through Minnesota or Wisconsin so the Tribe and the contractor had no choice but to re-package the detonators into six bright orange containers and dump them back into the waters of the Great Lakes. GPS positions were recorded; plans for follow up retrieval and proper disposal of the containers are pending based on the Tribe's ability to get a federal waiver to transport and process the explosive hazardous waste.