Kearneysville company’s program saving lives

By Quinn Daly

The Journal
Kearneysville, West Virginia

Thursday, 11 October 2007

Agriculture is a big business in the Eastern Panhandle, so there would be a serious effect on the region’s prosperity if farmers couldn’t till their fields without fear of losing a limb — or even their lives.

But that is exactly the situation in many countries around the world, said Justin Brady, a planning officer with the United Nations Mine Action Service.

It’s a problem that Schonstedt Instrument Co., based in Kearneysville, is stepping up to do something about. An electronics company that produces magnetic detecting equipment, Schonstedt has recently launched a program to help countries clear out land mines and other types of unexploded ordnance, such as hand grenades, artillery shells and mortar rounds.

Company President Mike Head said Schonstedt was looking to expand its market to include other types of detectors, which are designed to find electrical cables and other utility lines underground. Those detectors are more expensive, and so to help get the word out about the new product line, Schonstedt launched its “Buy a Schonstedt, Save a Life” campaign.

Head said that for every pipe and cable detector sold, the company donates one of its magnetic detectors to the United Nations Mine Action Service. The detectors are then distributed to countries with significant mine or ordnance contamination that cannot afford to buy the equipment on their own, said Bob Ebberson, director of business development at Schonstedt.

On Wednesday, the company donated 15 magnetic detectors to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

“Our country has more than 2 million tons (of unexploded ordnance),” said Bounhang Keosavang, the first secretary of the Embassy of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. “It is particularly a problem in the southern part of our country. We do not have the money to run the program for ourselves.”

United Nations Mine Action Service Director Max Gaylard said that Laos is one of the most contaminated countries in the world, but it is by no means the only country with a significant ordnance problem.

He said that mines and unexploded bombs pose a special threat to developing nations because often they make the infrastructure necessary to sustain their economy, and in Laos, poverty levels and contamination levels coincide exactly. In many places, mines are laid in roads, and they are never cleaned up after a conflict is over. This means that simple travel from one place to another can be complicated, if not impossible, Gaylard said, adding that worldwide, 50 to 100 people per day are killed or injured by mines and unexploded bombs while going about their daily business.

Unexploded ordnance also poses a significant threat to villages, because shells and cluster bomblets that had been dropped on hillsides often eventually roll downhill into settlements and also contaminate farmland.

Cluster bomblets are among the biggest perpetrators, said Brady. Cluster munitions are dispensed from air-dropped containers hundreds at a time. They are a threat because up to 40 percent of the small bombs do not explode when they hit the ground but can explode if disturbed, he said, adding that they are often small and can be difficult to find.

“There was an area in Tajikistan where cluster munitions had been dropped. By only using visual search methods, seven bomblets were found. But when a Schonstedt detector was used in the same area, we found 17 more,” Brady said.

To date, Schonstedt has donated 50 of its most rugged detectors, which weigh about 3 1/2 pounds and are powered by a nine-volt battery, to the United Nations, and has also partnered with the U.S. State Department, which has donated more than $1 billion to humanitarian mine clearing and ordnance disposal operations worldwide, said Daniel Hutchins, a program officer with the U.S. Department of State Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement.

Schonstedt also has donated detectors that have gone to Kenya, Somalia and Tajikistan.

“This program has helped a lot of countries, and also helped broadcast our position in this field,” Head said.