UXO clearance in Holland:

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My Job

Since 2001,two years after leaving the army, I started working in the Dutch UXO-clearance branch.
I work for a company that does Historical research, Digital terrain survey detection and the actual clearance itself.
The job is half computer, half digging/detecting. The awful third half (huh?) is reporting, contacting and consulting.

Several Dutch companies specialized themselves as there was a big demand, and need, to clear systematically.
Holland still has a lot of ww2 explosives buried that needs to be removed. Cities expand and so old frontlines and depots get build on. Ofcourse I work with the best team there is.

Locating, excavating, identification and storage, that's the job.
For this we use magnetometers, minedetectors and borehole(deep)-detection.
And ofcourse hydraulic excavators, can't do without them.
All this mostly by pre-scanning the terrains by computer-assisted detection.
A great overview of the terrain, but lots of computer and gps work.

2008 was the year of newly developed exams that are needed to do this job.
So far, I've passed all the exams up to "uxo clearance technician", freely translated by me.

2010 I've done my "senior" exams last june and awaiting score.

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The photos below are made on various places in Holland where I have been working. As you can see it's really worth it to clear before building. If these items were still in place on construction sites, accidents would have occurred.
We dig, identify, lift and store the explosives, but unscrewing bomb fuzes and "blowing up" is still done by the military-EOD.

Usually our field job starts with an extensive historical research. This is done by experienced historians.
The best work "outside" are foxholes and trenches, but old minefield sites and destruction sites are great too.
Don't get too excited, sometimes there's just nothing.
Or at the end of the job an old guy wakes up to tell you that the minefield was already cleared in 1946...

...and finding nothing in the pooring dutch rain is not funny...