Abandoned Suitcase Halts Island Supreme Court (NY)
Tuesday, May 18, 2004 By AARON SMITH ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
The piece of luggage was discovered to be empty after the bomb squad dragged it to a secure location
Police in St. George shut down traffic on Richmond Terrace and partially evacuated Supreme Court yesterday afternoon after a suspicious package -- which turned out to be an empty suitcase -- was discovered in a park between the court and Borough Hall.
A court officer discovered the Samsonite suitcase behind a hedge and alerted police, according to officers at the scene......
I didn't know we had rockets with sarin???
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Sarin rocket disposal could start in July
The Army expects the incinerator at the Umatilla depot will be ready, but others say more work must be done
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
ANDY DWORKIN
Two months from now, the U.S. Army hopes to start incinerating rockets filled with sarin nerve agent now stored at Umatilla Chemical Depot near Hermiston.
The step is overdue. The Army once promised to have destroyed the site's entire 3,700-ton inventory of chemical weapons by 2003. But lawsuits, construction delays, environmental rules and other problems intervened.
It's still not clear when the first sarin weapon will enter the incinerator. Umatilla leaders say it will be mid-July. But "there's an awful lot of work that has to be done by the Army and by the contractor," Washington Demilitarization Co., to meet of state environmental requirements and be allowed to start burning weapons, said Dennis Murphey, the Department of Environmental Quality administrator overseeing the effort.
This week, Oregonians get their chance to discuss whether the incinerator is ready to start destroying some of the country's deadliest arms, as the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission meets in Hermiston. Commissioners are scheduled to tour the incinerator plant today and meet with representatives of local, state, national and tribal governments.
The commission will take public comments from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Hermiston Community Center. The agency is taking written comments on the question until June 7.
At least some of those comments will say that the incinerator is not ready to start now and question whether it ever should. Some watchdog groups in Oregon and nationwide say that the incinerator's technology isn't proved or safe enough, and say the Army has a spotty record of managing other, similar chemical weapons incinerators in the United States.
"I don't think it's wise at all to start" in July, said Karyn Jones, a member of the Hermiston activist group Gasp, which has sued to stop the incinerator. "They still have so many things to take care of."
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