TOOELE, Utah — Just across the mountains from the Salt Lake Valley at the Tooele Army Depot, controlled detonations regularly shake the desert floor.
“We’ve been doing this since 1942,” said Wade Mathews, public affairs officer for the depot. “This is nothing new—we’ve been carrying out these operations right here in Tooele County.”
On June 11, the Tooele Army Depot invited local media to learn more about its open detonation demilitarization process.
Unlike a traditional military base with soldiers stationed for combat, the Tooele Army Depot is a specialized facility focused on the storage, maintenance, and disposal of military munitions.
“We have a large stockpile of older munitions that need to be destroyed because they’re either too old, obsolete, unusable, or unsafe,” Mathews explained. “We want to ensure that only the best ammunition reaches those in the field. It’s basically a requirement to do this—we don’t want to send unsafe munitions to warfighters.”
According to Mathews, the process is state-permitted and follows strict environmental and safety protocols.
The munitions are placed in pits dug into the ground, then covered with anywhere from seven to fifteen feet of dirt.
“The pits are completely covered on three sides by soil,” said Col. Luke R. Clover. “Once the connections are checked, bulldozers push earth over the munitions, burying and encapsulating the explosion to help soften the noise and reverberation.”
During the media tour, officials escorted us to a bunker about a mile away from the detonation pits. This bunker is where the detonations are initiated.
The sudden release of energy rattled both our bones and the desert floor.
The experience offered a valuable perspective, not just on the power of the munitions and how explosions can be felt beyond the blast zone, but also on why transparency matters when these activities impact nearby communities.
“We want to share this story because we know the explosions are occasionally felt in surrounding communities,” Col. Clover said. “We want to keep our community members and partners informed about what we do, how we do it safely, and explain some of the occasional disruptions they might hear or see.”
