EAST HELENA — The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office safely disposed of explosives found in East Helena on Monday evening, only about half a mile from City Hall.
Dispatch received a call around 4:00 PM that a case of dynamite was found while clearing out the old Mockel Precast and Excavating site.
The sheriff's office sent out their explosive ordinance disposal team to safely take care of the dynamite.
Lewis and Clark County Undersheriff Brent Colbert says the dynamite was so deteriorated that it was essentially paper left behind. There is no clear answer on how old it was or whether or not it could have gone off.
With the age of the explosives, it was safer to burn it on the scene rather than moving it somewhere else.
Undersheriff Colbert says finding dynamite in this way is not unheard of, especially with Montana's history of mining.
"It just depends on what was there before us. There's been a lot of change and a lot of industry that happened before now," Colbert said, "As people are cleaning things up and trying to move forward, they find old stuff that was left behind."
MTN reached out to Mockel, and they said the building was demolished last week.
The undersheriff says to call 911 immediately if you think you have found an explosive, and they can dispose of it for you.
