The Kansas Army Ammunition Plant (Kansas AAP) was a government-owned, contractor-operated (

GOCO Go-op (full name Go-op Cooperative Ltd,) is an open access train operating company which is currently proposing to operate a service between Taunton and Swindon, via Westbury. It aims to become the first cooperatively owned train operating c ...

) facility, established in 1942, located near

Parsons, Kansas Parsons is a city in Labette County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 9,600. It is the most populous city of Labette County, and the second-most populous city in the southeastern region of Kansas. ...

. The plant produced ammunition during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The plant was deactivated on March 4, 2009 as part of the Base Realignment and Closure, 2005. The plant is currently owned and operated b
Day and Zimmerman, Inc.
and primarily produces mortar ammunition.

Production

While in operation, the Kansas AAP produced a variety of ammunition, from basic artillery and

mortar shells A mortar is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, muzzle-loaded weapon, consisting of a smooth-bore (although some models use a rifled barrel) metal tube fixed to a base plate (to spread out the recoil) with a lightweight bipod mount and a ...

to sophisticated air dropped munitions with advanced guidance and control systems. Some examples of munitions produced include the

Sensor Fuzed Weapon The CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapon is a United States Air Force -class freefall Cluster Bomb Unit. It was developed and produced by Textron Defense Systems. A CBU-97 used in conjunction with the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser guidance tail kit is ...

for the U.S. Air Force, M720 and M768 60 mm mortar shells for the U.S. Army and the M795 155 mm projectile for the

U.S. Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through comb ...

. On July 26, 1989, a BLU-97 cluster bomb being manufactured in Building 1113 killed two employees.

Environmental impact

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inspected the Kansas Army Ammunition Plant to determine if the site needed to be cleaned up via

RCRA The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.United States. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. , , ''et seq., ...

or CERCLA. On September 30, 2003 the EPA found that the contamination at the site was under control.

References

External links

GlobalSecurity.org - Kansas Ammunition Plant
* {{coord, 37, 17, 07, N, 95, 10, 44, W, display=title United States Army arsenals Buildings and structures in Labette County, Kansas Military facilities in Kansas United States Army arsenals during World War II Historic American Engineering Record in Kansas 1942 establishments in Kansas 2009 disestablishments in Kansas