Federal officials are hiking through the Mojave Desert along the railroad tracks, searching for 60,000 pounds of a popular explosive. The ammonium nitrate in pellet form vanished from a rail car last month “as it was being shipped through the western U.S.” It’s somewhere between Cheyenne, Wyoming and California, headed west.
Explosive missing in transit
Explosive industry giant Dyno Nobel is sheepishly admitting that they lost a shipment of ammonium nitrate. That happens to be “the main ingredient in Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City.”
Putting things in perspective, McVeigh used one ton of the material to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. He packed 40 sacks of it in a Ryder truck. The railroad lost enough to do that 30 times.
The missing explosive was reported to the federal National Response Center on May 10 but they didn’t want the public out looking for it. Also commonly used as a fertilizer, the shipment left Wyoming on schedule and two weeks later the car was empty.
A 30-ton shipment of chemical explosives went missing in California…
To be exact, 60,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, the same stuff used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
What’s happening? pic.twitter.com/18CFLnPKVQ
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) May 22, 2023
Someone noticed “during a stop in the Mojave Desert.” Since then, “four separate investigations have since been launched.”
A spokesperson for Dyno Nobel relates that they were “shipping the ammonium nitrate in pellet form.” They don’t think it was pirated, instead believing that “it may have begun falling out of the rail car at some point during the trip.”
They really hope to find it before anyone else does. They had all sorts of security in place and are having a hard time getting their head around how all that explosive material could simply evaporate into thin air.
Sealed when it left
The rail car, Dyno Nobel explains, “was sealed when it left the Cheyenne facility, and the seals were still intact when it arrived in Saltdale, California.” The only thing they can figure out is that “a leak through the bottom gate on the rail car may have developed in transit.”
They hope it wasn’t rigged to dump the explosive intentionally but aren’t talking about that possibility.
A separate report notes that a “Federal Railroad Administration representative said that its ongoing investigation suggests one of the car gates was not properly closed.” The substance is easy enough to come by, just not in such quantities.
About 60,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used as a fertilizer and in explosives, went missing on a rail shipment from Wyoming to California in April and has still not been found, officials said. https://t.co/2PujwNyIEd
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 21, 2023
Chemistry Professor Nathan Lewis points out that “it’s a very common chemical that anybody that has used fertilizer has dealt with routinely and doesn’t think anything about it.” It’s also really easy to turn into a powerful explosive. “Just give it a little fuel and you’re asking for trouble.” Oklahoma isn’t the only place it’s been used as a big bomb.
The biggest reason why the feds want to get all that fertilizer swept back up before anyone else gets to it is because “in 2020, it was the source of a colossal explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.” A similar amount of explosive was used to the amount missing this time.
“More than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate detonated, killing more than 200 people and injuring thousands.” The September 11 anniversary is fast approaching and who knows how many terrorist have come across our wide open southern border with all the new citizens?
