5 Old Military Bombs Found in O’Neill Park

Workers halted construction of a bike trail through O’Neill Regional Park on Wednesday morning after discovering five military bombs, one containing an ounce of explosives. By noon, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s bomb squad had detonated the live bomb and taken the other four away.

The incident was another reminder that the park had been part of the former Trabuco Bombing Range, where Navy pilots practiced dropping ordnance from 1944 to 1956.

The bombing range now consists of the housing tracts in Rancho Santa Margarita and the rolling ridges and crevices of O’Neill park. About 70 tons of bombs and rockets were excavated when the city was built and few are believed to remain there. However, countless others remain beneath the soil in parts of the 3,100-acre county park, a popular spot for hiking, mountain biking and picnicking. “We weren’t surprised by this,” said Ken R. Smith, the county’s director of public works. “In fact, the contractor was warned they might find some bombs.”

The bombs were discovered near a condominium complex, just south of the Santa Margarita bridge, off Alicia Parkway and Santa Margarita Parkway.

By early afternoon, construction had resumed on the two-mile bike trail that will wind through a pristine wilderness area with deer and coyotes.

The bombs were found on a day that about 30 residents of the nearby Tijeras Creek Golf Course community staged a rally protesting the bike path construction.

The group cites the unearthing of the bombs as evidence that environmental studies that cleared the way for construction were not done correctly. One resident circulated a petition to halt the bike path and gathered about 650 signatures, which he presented to the county Board of Supervisors this week.

Mark Cleary, who organized Wednesday’s protest, said the county considers the bike trail “an improvement, but it’s a desecration of what’s down there. It’s not going to seem like a wildlife area with a 10-foot-wide asphalt path running through it.”