EDET's booming business.

• Author: Hunt, Barbara
• Position: Explosive Disposal Engineering and Technology Ltd. - Environment

Think your business is tough? A Valley environmental company, started to dispose of unexploded ordnance, just hopes its business plan doesn't blow up in its face.

Environmental questions can be controversial, but for one Alaska company, disposal is literally an explosive issue. Initially part of America's "arsenal of democracy," unexploded ordnance (UXO) left behind by military forces poses a threat to Alaskans and visitors as they work or explore the outdoors.

To the birdwatcher, hunter or Boy Scout, the rusty piles may appear to be harmless mounds of scrap metal. But photos taken in the Aleutian Chain, for example, reveal masses of live rocket fuses, piled projectiles, incendiary bombs and bomb fuses. Alaska's World War II legacy of memories include dusty paperwork, faded photographs and discarded, unexploded ordnance.

In Alaska, Explosive Disposal Engineering and Technology Ltd. (EDET), is the only company qualified to deal with ordnance and explosive waste. The Wasilla-based company was established in 1994 by Carl Seutter to dispose of explosives - a business that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill reverently described as "a grim and deadly game."

Along much of Alaska's coast are the historic sites of military activity at Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, Umnak, Attu and Adak Islands. The majority of explosive ordnance can be found at military installations, abandoned camps, target areas and practice ranges. A minimal amount of explosive waste is the result of mining, oil industry and construction projects.

The James Bond Thing

Seutter's title is director of technical operations for EDET. This is not a paper title. As a senior UXO supervisor, he is a master explosive ordnance disposal specialist, with over 20 years of professional experience in locating, identifying, rendering safe and disposing of conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear fission/fusion devices.

Seutter served the Department of the Army for 20 years, including a stint in Vietnam. He assisted the Secret Service in the 1970s, providing a safe environment for the president and vice president. Seutter was a bomb disposal instructor and senior officer for the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School's Advanced Access and Disablement Division. Seutter says laughingly, "We did the James Bond, Star Wars thing - which was pretty high-caliber technology, undercover stuff."

It is no accident that these hazards are considered environmentally unsafe. Forgotten munitions have the...