News > January 22, 2004 – Milwaukee Country Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad visits Kinetic

Every company works daily to keep it’s industrial facility as safe as possible for it’s employees and visitors. Yet as hard as we try “something” will slip through the cracks.

This “something” was discovered at Kinetic in January of 2004. Kinetic’s Head Engineer, Paul Lewandowski, while doing some housekeeping in our laboratory, discovered an old bottle of picric acid in the corner of the fume hood. The liquid had started to crystallize. Who brought the picric acid into the lab? When was in brought in? What was its purpose? No one knows; we could not even find records showing when this was purchased.

How dangerous is crystallized picric acid? The world’s largest non-nuclear explosion occurred in Halifax Harbor on December 6, 1917.

When Joseph Masters asked one of the Bomb Squad members “just how dangerous is this?” he was told: “I would rather play catch with live hand grenades!”

Compounding the disposal concerns for the Milwaukee Country Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad was the weather. It was a bitterly cold day in Greendale – +5F/-15c – with a bitter 15 mph wind. This concerned the Bomb Squad disposal members; would condensation occur when the bottle went from the +70F/+21C plant to the bitter cold outside? Would this condensation cause an explosion? Calls were made to other bomb disposal experts. The answers were the same: “we don’t know but you will shortly find out.”

This film clip was put together from actual footage along with re-enactments photographed by Rodney Mattrisch – Kinetic’s Senior Estimator and amateur film producer. It has been shown at numerous bomb disposal training seminars around the United States including training by the United States Department of Treasury Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

A similar incident occurred in mid-September, 2006 in Sheffield, England during a routine factory audit at a foundry. Located only 4-1/2 miles away from Kinetic’s sister company, Microblade Limited, the Sheffield authorities employed techniques similar to those used by the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad to destroy the picric acid. These similar incidents, occurring oceans apart, reinforce the need for industry to continuously review the materials and chemicals in their manufacturing process to insure a safe workplace.

If you would like a copy to show at your company’s safety meeting please contact and advise him if you want the DVD version for showing on a TV or the CD version for showing on a PC.  Maintaining a safe working environment is important for everyone.

Please click here to watch this movie in streaming mode; It's an 80mb Windows Media Player file running 14 minutes. Be sure to have your speakers turned on.