Tuesday, November 09, 1999
'Anthrax' prank at Fernald triggers costly reaction
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Memo to office pranksters: Don't ever describe the goo at the bottom of an unwashed coffee cup as anthrax.
An apparent office joke at the former Fernald uranium processing plant near Ross rapidly escalated Monday into a full-scale emergency response to a possible bioterrorism incident. The false alarm involved no less than eight county, state and federal agencies and wasted several thousand taxpayer dollars.
“Hey, jokesters, I want you to know this isn't something to fool around with,” said Tim In gram, Hamilton County health commissioner. “Any time we get a call like this, it has to be taken seriously. But when it's a prank, it means that what I came in to do today isn't getting done.”
Starting about 7 a.m. Monday, a small army of emergency personnel scrambled into action because a Fernald worker found a coffee cup at an abandoned desk with a note attached saying “Do not touch. Anthrax sample.”
By 8:30 a.m. the incident had triggered responses from a Fernald internal security team, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI, the Ohio Department of Health, the Hamilton and Butler County health departments, the Hamilton Coun ty sheriff, and the Crosby Township Fire Department.
By 4 p.m., officials confirmed that a fungus growing in the cup did not contain any anthrax spores. Instead, an investigation was on to identify the prankster.
“After everyone assembled at their rally points, the situation was spelled out,” said Fernald spokesman Gary Stegner. “People were asked, "If this is a joke, let us know.' No one did. So we had to treat it as a potential terrorist threat.”
Should the prankster get caught, he or she has a good chance of getting fired. With no sign of serious harmful intent, federal charges are unlikely. But local officials could pursue state charges of inducing panic — a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
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