Hawthorne Army Depot
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The Hawthorne Army Depot is a huge ammunition storage site located near the town of Hawthorne in western Nevada in the United States. The depot used to be the Naval Ammunition Depot. It is directly south of Walker Lake. The depot covers 147,000 acres (595 km²), and has 600,000 square feet (55,700 m²) of floor space in 2,427 storage bunkers. It is said to be the largest such facility in the world.
The Hawthorne Army Depot stores reserve munitions to be used after the first 30 days of a major conflict. As such, it is only partially staffed during peacetime, but provision has been made to rapidly expand staffing as necessary. The depot is run by an independent contractor under an agreement with the government.
In May 2005, the facility was included on the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure list, with closure being recommended. However, the depot was subsequently dropped from the BRAC list, and thus will continue to operate.