For decades, U.S. troops have trained for combat with artificial grenades and munitions exploding around them.
The fake weapons detonate with the same horrific sounds and dizzying lights of the real ones but without the life-threatening explosions and flying shrapnel.
But it turns out training weapons present a hazard of their own. They contain perchlorate, a common ingredient in rocket fuel that can pollute groundwater and has been linked to thyroid complications in adults and developmental problems in children.
In the last several years, perchlorate has been detected in water around the country, much of it related to military or space program facilities. In 2002, the chemical was discovered seeping from an Army training range into the underground water supply for Aberdeen, Md.
Since then, a team of scientists and engineers at Picatinny Arsenal in Rockaway Township -- an Army weapons research facility -- has been working to develop "greener" perchlorate-free training weapons.
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