Saco Defense Publicity Shy
by Isabel Denham
The company formerly called Saco Defense is hard to learn about, mainly because
they want it that way. The company operated in Saco for at least 30
years, but did not publicize itself very much. In June, 2000, it was
bought from the New Colt Holding Corp. by General Dynamics. It is now
a subsidiary of General Dynamics Armament Systems, and is known as General
Dynamics Weapon Systems. When this sale was announced, General Dynamics,
of Falls Church, Virginia, was said to employ approximately 43,000 people
worldwide and have annual sales of $10 billion. According to public
records of industries in Maine published in 2003 and 2004, Saco Defense
(as we still call it) employs 300 people and has sales of $25 million
or more annually. It is listed as a weapons manufacturer with exports
worldwide.
On August 2, 2004, The Portland Press Herald reported that the 2005
Fiscal Year Defense Appropriation Bill being considered in Congress
included $15.2 million in projects for Saco Defense. Senator Collins
was reported to have said that their "projects will provide information
and advancement of technologies that are important to our national defense."
Whether this allocation held up in the budget negotiations I do not
know. Specifics about what Saco Defense actually manufactures are slim.
Some products mentioned in print are machine guns, cannon barrels, and
the MK-19 grenade launcher. From another source, the Saco operation
is described as a production and testing site, "a leading producer
of small and medium caliber machine guns, cannon barrels, and complementary
equipment." A story in Press Herald on September 7, 2002, reported
the production of a new weapon at Saco Defense called Striker 40, a
grenade gun, which is much lighter than the old Gatling type, and is
designed for installation in the nose of an aircraft; it has a video
control system, programmable ammunition, and can fire 40mm grenades
at a rate of 225 per minute. The Defense Appropriation Bill in 2002
allotted $4.5 million for manufacturing this weapon for U.S. Special
Operations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported: Saco Defense "operated
an unlined surface impoundment containing oily waste and solvent waste
from 1970 to 1983. Significant remedial work has been performed at the
site in recent years. EPA is hopeful that by the year 2000 data will
be available indicating that human exposures are not occurring and that
contaminants in groundwater are clearly delineated and controlled."
By 2003 the EPA reported that, "current human exposures [are] under
control."
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Talk Index, Winter, 2004 - 2005