Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. is investigating why a potentially explosive chemical was stored in its laboratory facility near Hazleton. Discovery of the chemical Thursday afternoon (5/11) led to an evacuation of about 175 people from the building that houses the laboratory.

Workers from TEEM, a hazardous materials cleanup team under contract to PP&L, destroyed the chemical under the direction of the Luzerne County Emergency Management Agency (LEMA). No one was injured.

Early this afternoon, laboratory workers found a container of picric acid that had crystallized. In that form, the acid has the potential to explode.

Picric acid is used for metallurgical testing, but the container in question had not been used for several years.

Following the lab's procedure for responding to chemical emergencies, the workers called for help from local fire companies. The Hazle Township and West Hazleton fire companies responded.

LEMA was brought in to oversee response activities.

The building, PP&L's System Facilities Center in the Humboldt Industrial Park, was evacuated at about 3:30 p.m. under the direction of LEMA. Because the evacuation took place near the end of the work day, PP&L employees were released to go home.

The chemical was removed from the building, taken to a remote area of the property and detonated with two quarter-sticks of dynamite. Remaining traces of the chemical were destroyed by controlled burning. Soil from the area is being dug up and disposed of at an approved facility. The amount of soil fills one 55-gallon container.

PP&L is bringing in Lisa Palfey of Conyngham, an independent chemical engineer under contract to PP&L, to help company officials assure that no other potentially hazardous substances are stored at the facility. That assessment will be completed before employees return to the building for work on Friday.

The 282,000-square-foot (6-acre) System Facilities Center houses laboratories, repair shops, testing facilities, storage facilities, conference rooms and offices.