By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles & Sam Borsato - @BorsatoSam

Explosive Disposal Unit Diffuses Situation in Coaldale

Aug 26, 2016 | 3:21 PM

COALDALE – Coaldale RCMP were able to re-open 20 Avenue from 17 to 18 Street just after 8:30 p.m. Friday.

The area had to be shut down around 2-p.m., when a woman came to the detachment with a stick of dynamite in her vehicle. She told staff that her father was a miner and that she found it on her property while she was cleaning and wanted the RCMP to dispose of it.

Police evacuated the area and called in the Explosive Disposal Unit out of Edmonton to handle the situation.

Once on scene, Explosive Technician, Constable Douglas Lee, quickly placed the dynamite in a protective case and removed it from the woman’s minivan for disposal.

“We’ve got a couple options,” Lee explained, after safely loading the case into his vehicle. “We can either counter-charge it with commercial explosives that we carry, or we can burn it, and burning is always the safer, better method of disposing of old dynamite.”

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Lee also noted that everyone was fortunate that things ended the way they did.

“It all depends on how old the dynamite is, it could be in pristine condition, I mean it is commercial explosives, but dynamite does degrade over time and that’s when it becomes highly volatile,” stated Lee.

“If you find any commercial explosives on your property – because Alberta’s full of it, I mean we’ve got oilfield, we’ve got mining, so the explosives are out there and every once in a while they surface up – don’t touch it, call the police and then we’ll take it from there.”