Residents Plan Legal Action On Bomb Tests

I hate getting my feathers fluffed on a Wednesday!  Maybe the group formed by Newark citizens and South Point area residents would have time to send letters to all families of the men and women in the armed forces of America explaining to them how they choose to not have their quiet, relaxing days interrupted with the noise and random blasts coming from this testing sight.


Maybe this group of citizens would be kind enough to send a sympathy card to all the families whose loved just arrived home this week in a flag draped casket.  Perhaps this group can explain to them why they have elected to hire an attorney to fight this instead of  giving testing at this sight an honest try.  Be sure to tell them you don't want it because you don't want the inconvenience.

Inconvenience.  Gee.  Our wonderful men and women serving this great country don't complain while protecting our county and our freedom.  They deserve to have the finest of  equipment and I expect MY county to do ALL it can to ensure they are protected. 

Not only is Hardwire LLC working so desparately to give America's military  that but also opening doors so more people may gain employment.  Surely this group
that has named itself Seashore NOT C-4 knows that.

Brian Shane

Staff Writer

Daily Times

NEWARK — Stacey Simpson lives about a mile from where federal law enforcement agencies have used a firing range for munitions testing the last few years.

“Any explosions have absolutely shaken our homes, rattled our windows and startled us,” she said. “In the middle of the day, you hear and feel something like that, it’s unnerving. It’s not something anybody would ever want to live with.”

And with county zoning officials now giving early approval for a local armor manufacturer to perform product testing at the same site, she’s concerned the random blasts could come much more frequently, so she and neighbors are threatening a lawsuit if county officials don’t withdraw their blessing of the tests.

Worcester County’s Board of Zoning Appeals gave preliminary approval on Sept. 8 for armor manufacturer Hardwire LLC to test its stronger-than-steel composite armor at the Langmaid Road firing range. Testing would be done using controlled explosions buried several feet underground in a steel box.

Hardwire was approved for testing on weekdays during business hours, up to six times a week and no more than twice daily, with a limit of 25 pounds of explosives per test.

Newark and South Point-area residents are organizing to fight the board. They have formed a group called Seashore NOT C-4 to oppose any testing of military-grade armor near their homes. They already have a Facebook page and are building a website.

“It’s our opinion that the (board) doesn’t have the expertise to answer a question like this in a matter of hours,” Simpson said. “It’s our belief that we absolutely need more time, more study, more questions answered.”

Simpson also said the Sept. 8 board meeting came as a surprise to her and many of her neighbors.

“We arrived at that hearing really unprepared, and we were pretty much mowed down by the two-hour testimony of the Hardwire company,” she said.

“We did not have time to prepare. We had no expert witnesses, no legal testimony. Most of us in the meeting were just folks, just neighbors, with a lot of unanswered questions.”

The residents have hired environmental law attorney Ben Wechsler to represent them. He is pushing for the board to reopen the case and allow for further citizen input, according to an Oct. 6 letter Wechsler had hand-delivered to the county’s offices. In the letter, Wechsler said he represents John and Hale Harrison — founders of the Harrison Group, which operates 10 Ocean City hotels — along with other Langmaid Road property owners.

Wechsler said he thinks the board made legal errors in granting this special exception approval for Hardwire. One of his concerns is the county decided it was OK for Hardwire to test products using explosives based on the fact that government agencies had also done explosive tests there. Government law enforcement agencies, however, are not subject to local restrictions, he said, but private companies are.

“What the county may or may not have allowed on this site is simply irrelevant to what a private, non-governmental entity, such as Hardwire, may be allowed to undertake by special exception,” he wrote.

The firing range is located in what’s known as a natural resource area. Using a provision in the code that allows for special exception approval that is very close to a permitted use, the board likened the explosive testing to the gunfire that happens at the existing firing range.

However, the residents argue there is no permitted use for a gun club in a natural resource area, meaning a firing range would be a special exception in itself, and so testing explosives would require a special exception twice removed.

The board still has to adopt findings of fact and conclusions of law in regard to the Hardwire case. After that, there will be a 30-day period for individuals to file a petition for judicial review with the Circuit Court.

Wechsler said the Seashore NOT C-4 group will appeal within the allotted 30 days if the case isn’t continued.


Wechsler said his clients fully support Hardwire as a local business that is working to help troops overseas. “This is a question about the legality of the decision,” he said. “We don’t want this to be perceived as, ‘We don’t want Hardwire down here.’ ”

Hardwire CEO George Tunis said at the Sept. 8 meeting — a rare public appearance for a man who prefers to keep a low profile for his company — that he would consider not testing at the firing range if the neighbors objected strongly.

When reached by telephone this week, Tunis said of the Newark testing, “it will always be under consideration.”

“There are a lot of men and women in harm’s way that we are working on protecting,” he said. “We will always make responsible decisions for all the residents, and that includes all the residents of the United States.”

Source;  http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/20111012/NEWS01/111012002//Residents-plot-legal-action-bomb-testing?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|frontpage