Introduction

Managing sites contaminated with munitions constituents has become an international problem shared by many countries, but few have the technical expertise or have developed the methodology for the effective characterization of environmental impacts from site contamination with explosives and related energetic materials (EMs) [1]. Some countries, including Canada and the United States, are developing and testing new munition constituents that are designed to decrease environmental damage of military activities. These and other activities, including military base closures and demilitarization, rely on the use of ecotoxicological data for munitions constituents. The greatly increased need for such ecotoxicological data provided an impetus for extensive investigations of EM environmental impacts in recent years.