Questions have been raised about safety and environmental compliance at the nation's leading germ warfare defense laboratory after an Army bomb squad destroyed a batch of potentially explosive chemicals at Fort Detrick in Frederick.
A three-man team wearing protective gear removed 36 containers holding about seven gallons of ethers on Jan. 24 from an evacuated lab building at the Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
The squad trucked the chemicals to another part of the post and destroyed them in a sealed underground pit, using 96 incendiary grenades detonated by remote control.
As a result of the incident, Maryland Department of the Environment officials plan to meet March 26 with Fort Detrick officials, said Michael Sullivan, a department spokesman.
The state was asked by a private environmental and safety consultant in Frederick to investigate what he alleges are violations of laws on hazardous waste.
Most of the material destroyed was diethyl ether, a common laboratory chemical used to anesthetize animals, among other things.
Ethers can become dangerously explosive if stored too long and exposed to air. The containers apparently had been kept 12 years past the 1979 expiration date on their labels, according to Norman M. Covert, the post's chief of public affairs.
The chemicals were discovered by chance on Jan. 23 in a fireproof storage cabinet next to a laboratory where researchers work with dangerous bacteria, germs and viruses, Mr. Covert said.
The institute helps develop vaccines and protective devices to counter biological warfare.
Only one of the containers, labeled "anhydrous ether," apparently had been opened, according to an Army report on the incident.
But the chemicals' manufacturers recommended that the containers be treated as "potential bombs," the report says. Mr. Covert said that post officials were warned by a state fire marshal that the chemicals could explode without warning and could blow out the walls of the laboratory building.
Based on that advice, post safety officials evacuated the laboratory and contacted an explosive ordnance detachment from Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania. The squad arrived the next morning and destroyed the chemicals.
The incident has prompted the laboratory staff to search for other potentially dangerous chemicals that may be in the laboratories, Mr. Covert said.
