The first year students from Citadel college came by the last couple of weeks at one of our projects. In one of the workshops the students came to take a look at the location of the project 'Vossenpels Noord'in Lent municipality Nijmegen.
For the development of the building of houses Den Ouden Bodac wil free de ground that they will be building on from OO (explosive war rests). Because there was a lot of disturbance by former horticulture in the area and there are multiple main species ammunition found in ditches, it is a large scale and secure investigative job. Next to the tracking down of the OO, remediates Den Ouden Bodac the soil to save it from pollution.
Because this job is so big, there is enough of a reason to introduce the project and the people who work on the project to the residents of the neighbourhood. Two groups of students of the Citadel College were received by historians Daan van Alphen, Martijn van Bommel and Senior specialist OOO Eric beek. The first year students were given a presentation in which the historical context of the area was explained (operation Market Garden, frontline, etc.) and how what happened the past was still affecting the present. There are still a lot of explosives and explosive rests from the war in the ground in Vossenpels originating from this period. The students were made aware of this 'ground danger' by actual ammunition pieces under professional supervision of the Senior specialist OOO in the VTVS ( safe storage of OO)
Finally the students were allowed to find out if they had a talent for detecting OO (explosives) and they got to work with metal detectors in pairs. Ofcourse there were harmless ammunition articles burried in a sandbox that was made especially for them close to the project terrain.
All and all it was a very intresting morning for the students. Hopefully they learned a bit more about the war history of their neighbourhood and the affect that you are still able to tell right now. At the end of the morning they each got a goodie bag from den ouden and it was time for them to resume to their normal lessons.
Please note! We have new telephone numbers as of July 19. Check our contact page.