OGDEN -- Firefighters and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials combed the home of an elderly couple Saturday in search of potentially dangerous materials that had apparently been stored in the dwelling for years.
Various chemical compounds such as resins and epoxy-like materials, some kept in original containers manufactured in the mid-1990s, were found at the home at 1620 9th St., said Ogden Fire Chief Mike Mathieu.
The names of the elderly couple who live at the house are being withheld by the Standard-Examiner.
The man who lives there legally purchased the surplus chemicals from his former employer, ATK Thiokol, and used them primarily for model rocketry, Mathieu said.
The materials were properly stored and did not pose any immediate danger to the couple or their neighbors, who were all allowed to remain in their homes Saturday while a hazardous materials crew categorized and determined how to remove the items, Mathieu said. The effort could take up to a week to complete.
"We are doing an assessment investigation of the chemicals contained in various mason jars and vials on this property," Dave Romero, Region 8 scene coordinator for the EPA, said Saturday outside of the house.
"Once it is determined how hazardous they are, we dispose of them properly."
Romero said some of the materials found at the home could be classified as corrosives, flammables and oxides.
In addition, the hazardous materials crew found less than 2 pounds of black powder inside the home. The powder was detonated Saturday on hillside near the city's 9th Street water tank, Mathieu said.
Jamie Renda, who lives on Hislop Street, just a few blocks away from the house, was woken up from an afternoon nap by the blast. She said she believes the neighborhood should have been warned ahead of time.
"Kids could have been playing up there when that happened," she said. "There are also elderly people that live in our neighborhood, and it could have caused medical problems with the noise from the blast."
Firefighters, EPA officials and representatives from the city's Risk Management Department and Weber-Morgan Health Department began planning for the operation Thursday after being contacted by the woman who lives at the house, Mathieu said.
The operation is related to an Oct. 8 incident in which officers with Box Elder County Sheriff's Department went to Easy Access, 8823 S. U.S. 89, in Willard, and Double D Storage, 2100 S. U.S. 89, in Perry, where large amounts of legal chemicals were found in two storage units, officials say.
The woman who lives at the house where Saturday's operation took place said her husband kept chemicals in the storage units in anticipation of selling them to the government.
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