Bomb caught by fishing boat

[MrHunters]

maybe it should go in news but its boat related.

A local scalloper brought an unexploded bomb into Gloucester Harbor and onto Jodrey Fish Pier with a registered Massachusetts boat.

Peter Marshall reported the explosive to the Massachusetts Environmental Police yesterday afternoon, according to Kevin LaPlante, an environmental police officer.

The Coast Guard closed Gloucester Harbor around 5:30 p.m. yesterday while the device, about the size of a fire extinguisher and thought to be a mine, was examined and X-rayed by the state police bomb squad with the assistance of the Gloucester Fire Department. The harbor was still off limits to all boats at 9:30 p.m. yesterday and delivery trucks were turned away from Jodrey Fish Pier.

Deputy Fire Chief Philip Dench left the pier just before 9 p.m. yesterday with Mayor John Bell and a state police officer to scout local detonation sites. He said the soccer fields in Magnolia and the composting facility on Dogtown Road were top candidates.

Police and fire crews will know how to transport and dispose of the explosive once they determine what it is.

"It's usually done as quickly as possible," LaPlante said, meaning Riverdale or Magnolia residents could have had a rude awakening early this morning.

LaPlante said Marshall reported finding a placard with instructions for the mine, written in English in fairly new condition. If true, that would lower the probability of the mine being a World War II relic, as some officials speculated.

Fire Chief Barry McKay said the bomb was found 10 to 12 miles south southeast of Gloucester Harbor. An explosives dump is in that area, just east of Stelwagen Bank sanctuary.

Patrolman Aran Patrican said Gloucester police - himself, patrolman Joseph Fitzgerald and Detective Michael Gossom - responded to the pier around 4:30 p.m., but did not communicate over the radio.

State police originally kept people 600 meters from the device, which was examined at the end of the pier, but brought the line in to 1,000 feet.

The Coast Guard has pictures of the device, but they are classified and cannot be released to the public.



i hear the detonated it this morning.