NEW: EPA Echoes Whistleblower, Plans to File Complaint Against Naval Base  

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Soon after he started his new position as safety chief at Crane Army Ammunition Activity, an Army ammunition production and storage facility at the Navy base in Crane, Indiana, Rick Ward could tell he shouldn’t have taken the job. 

Even though CAAA handled extremely sensitive materials, he felt his leadership was less interested in keeping people safe than in saving money. Supervisors ignored his warnings about the sloppy handling of explosives that could lead to disastrous consequences. 

Finally, he’d had enough. He submitted an anonymous complaint to OSHA. His supervisors assigned him to investigate the matter himself. An hour after he turned in his investigation report, he said, he was put on administrative leave. 

This is how Ward described the episode in the introduction to his whistleblower case that he shared with Hunterbrook. He said he believes he was fired in retaliation for being a whistleblower, a charge the Army has denied, despite reportedly settling a U.S. Merits Protection Board case with Ward.

A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency document follows Ward’s account and flags critical safety violations at U.S. Naval Support Activity Crane, or NSA Crane, where CAAA is a tenant. 

In a letter sent to Crane’s Commander Luis G. Martinez on September 11, the EPA alleged that the Navy base violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, a law governing the management of solid and hazardous waste, and mishandled highly dangerous materials. The agency plans to propose a penalty of almost $250,000.

The Crane base is located about 25 miles southwest of Bloomington, Indiana, and is geographically the third-largest naval installation in the world. Along with CAAA, another major tenant is the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division. The base supports a variety of Navy operations, including expeditionary and electronic warfare.

And it stores ammunition and other sensitive materials — improperly, the EPA alleged. The agency put the blame for a red phosphorus fire at the base in July 2022 squarely on Crane’s inappropriate handling of the material.

“The fire was the result of storing the mortar rounds outside, under a tarp for about a week when daily high temperatures averaged 96 to 99 °F. Red phosphorus can react with moisture and heat to form phosphine gas, which auto ignites at 100°F,” the EPA stated in its letter. “Crane stored the red phosphorous in a way that did not minimize the possibility of a fire, considering the autoignition temperature of phosphine.” 

The EPA also suggested that there could have been another fire or even an explosion at the base because sensitive material was stored inappropriately: During an inspection in 2024, Crane was storing 20,000 pounds of aluminum powder in a building “subject to dampness and leaks of water from the concrete roof,” the letter stated. Aluminum powder is sensitive to moisture and should be stored under dry, inert gas, according to a safety data sheet. The EPA concluded, “Crane stored the aluminum powder in a way that did not minimize the possibility of a fire or explosion.” 

It would not be the first accidental detonation at Crane: Five people were hospitalized after a 2013 explosion at the base.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel backed up Ward’s allegations in 2022 in a letter sent to President Joe Biden, in which it substantiated — either fully or in part — five of the eight allegations he had made.

The U.S. Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, which oversees NSA Crane, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The EPA said it does not comment on pending enforcement actions.

The EPA letter appears to contradict a report by the Navy’s dedicated team for weapons and explosives safety, called the Naval Ordnance Safety & Security Activity. The report was based on a NOSSA inspection in 2023.

The partly redacted document, which was obtained by Hunterbrook, shows that while  inspectors found one high-risk and several medium-risk violations at the base, the explosives safety program at Crane was rated “satisfactory.”

While the NOSSA report gave Crane a passing grade, the EPA found several violations as well as fire and explosion risks during inspections in February 2023 and September 2024. 

The agency noted that in 2023, Crane stored a container of reactive hydrogen peroxide waste next to “containers of ignitable organic solvents and alcohols,” without a separation barrier between them. Hydrogen peroxide produces “heat, fire and toxic gas” when it reacts with organic solvents and alcohols. Similarly, in 2024, hydrogen peroxide waste was stored next to containers of acidic waste and lead-acid batteries. “Mixing hydrogen peroxide with acids can produce heat, gas and explosions,” the EPA warned.

When the EPA reviewed Crane’s contingency plan in 2023, it discovered that the three emergency coordinators listed in the document had already retired. It also found that employees with “significant hazardous waste management responsibilities” had not received relevant training courses. 

The agency also inspected Crane’s open burn documents and found that the base had violated burning restrictions on seven days, when the recorded weather conditions would not have allowed for burns or detonations on the base. The EPA said that when it requested information about this, Crane responded in 2024 and explained that its employees had noted weather conditions on a schedule — for example in the morning and at noon — instead of at the time the base was actually burning or detonating substances. This gave the appearance that burn restrictions had been violated, according to Crane’s response.

The Crane base now has the opportunity to respond to the EPA’s allegations and enter settlement negotiations with the agency. According to its letter, the EPA can file its planned administrative complaint for a civil penalty after October 11.

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