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 Less than three years later, the town of Doyline was evacuated for a week when authorities found more than 6 million pounds of improperly stored military propellant at Explo Systems Inc. Some was spilling from containers or "hidden" among trees at the company's facility about 25 miles east of Shreveport, Louisiana authorities said.
In a proposal submitted to the Army and dated Jan. 21, 2010, Explo Systems said it had "storage capacity for more than 70 million pounds of explosive material between our Louisiana and Kentucky storage locations," according to documents obtained by the AP through a public records request.
Explo Systems was hired to demilitarize artillery propelling charges -- not to store them
-- and intended to take the containers apart and recycle the materials. The propellant chemical known as M6 was to be sold primarily for coal mine blasting, and the arrangement meant the company could make money from both the Army and buyers of the recycled components. But when demand for M6 decreased, the company started taking in more than it could sell and ran out of bunker space.
Explo could have told the Army it didn't have enough space -- and risk defaulting on its contract
-- but it didn't do that until authorities stopped allowing it to accept more charges. Days later, Doyline was evacuated because of concerns that any ignition could set off a massive chain-reaction blast.
"They certainly didn't want it to stop coming in. If they quit taking it, they lose that income," said Sheriff Gary Sexton in Webster Parish, where the facility is located on a Louisiana National Guard base called Camp Minden.
Company officials have not responded to numerous messages seeking comment.
Stephen D. Abney, spokesman for the Army's Joint Munitions Command, said storage space "wasn't a factor in us letting the contract" because Explo planned to sell the material.
Still, the company told the Army it had somewhere to put the millions of pounds of explosives it would receive. Aside from bunkers in Louisiana, it claimed to have 600 acres of underground storage at a Kentucky facility. Yet Kentucky authorities say the company doesn't have the needed permits.
The Army gave Explo a contract in March 2010 to demilitarize up to 450,000 propelling charges a year. The contract was for $2.9 million annually with options for renewal for four years.
Each charge contains 20.6 pounds of M6, according to Explo Systems' plan, meaning the company could take in nearly 9.3 million pounds each year under the contract.
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 In the proposal, Explo Systems Inc. said it had the capacity to store 10 million pounds of material at Camp Minden
-- a number verified by Louisiana authorities. But some of the storage space was taken up by other material.
In addition, the proposal says there is over "70,000,000 pounds of capacity currently unused" at "its slurry facility the Kentucky Powder Company site." Kentucky Powder is an explosives company with offices in Lexington and Mount Vernon, Ky.
Linda Potter, a spokeswoman with the Kentucky Department for Natural Resources, said neither company has permits to store Explo Systems' propellant.
"To store explosives or lease space for Explo, both Kentucky Powder and Explo Systems would need to obtain the appropriate permit from the Explosives and Blasting Division. Neither company currently holds this permit, nor did they in 2010," Potter said.
Abney said Army officials visited Kentucky Powder in May 2010 because Explo listed Kentucky Powder as a purchaser of its product.
Abney said it "was the understanding of the Army representatives" that Explo was going to sell M6 to Kentucky Powder and Kentucky Powder would use it to make blasting slurry for mining. But there was no operational slurry facility there at the time.
"The Army representatives were shown the blueprints and the footings for the slurry plan operations during the Army site visit," said Abney, who doesn't know if the facility is operational now.
Kentucky Powder "did not provide consumption rates" and the company did not tell the Army that it would store the product for Explo, Abney said. The Army's contract is not with Kentucky Powder.
R. Edward McGhee is president of Kentucky Powder Company, according to filings with the Kentucky Secretary of State's office. Business filings in Louisiana list him as a director of Explo Systems. The Louisiana documents list David Fincher of Burns, Tenn., as president of Explo Systems and David Alan Smith of Winchester, Ky., as secretary and treasurer.
[Associated
Press; By HOLBROOK MOHR]
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