I know this blog has been something of a flop, at least as frequent or comprehensive posting is concerned, but hopefully it's given you something to read on occasion. This post isn't about something that happened to me, as you'll see-- it's about where I live.

(from the 3/21/07 edition of the Desert Dispatch, the local "newspaper.")

Sheriff shoots at a suspicious substance -- Suspected sodium peroxide taken out of Barstow
By staff writer Aaron Aupperlee

BARSTOW - A detective from the sheriff's bomb and arson squad fired two shots at a possibly explosive substance in an old metal can Tuesday afternoon not knowing what would happen.

"Until they were able to take that sample, twisting the lid could have set it off," said Det. Jim Maham of the bomb and arson squad.

Maham's two shots from a high-powered sniper rifle punctured the container and the substance, preliminarily identified as sodium peroxide, spilled onto the ground in the dirt lot between Hooz on First and Starlight Donuts. A barricade of sandbags protected the surrounding area. Brian Otter, an environmental health specialist with the San Bernardino County Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Division, took a sample of the substance and determined it was safe for transport away from Barstow. Otter said his team would contact the state and arrange for proper disposal.

"All clear," Otter said at around 2 p.m.

That was not the case at around 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, when someone found the old metal can somewhere in the alley between Second and Third avenues. The Barstow Police Department and Barstow Fire Protection District were called.

Fire Chief Darrell Jauss said the man who found the can did not know what the substance was but claimed to have seen similar substances when he was in Vietnam. Jauss said the military used sodium peroxide in oxygen generators. It can be very volatile and reacts with water and air and is sensitive to shock, Jauss said.

The San Bernardino County Fire Department, the hazardous material team and the bomb and arson squad were called in to assist the fire district and police department. The gathered departments decided to attempt to dispose of the substance on site by forcing it to react with water rather than risk transporting it.

"It's relatively safe, but it is old enough that they don't want to mess with it," Jauss said. "Better to use the materials and skills we have to safely blow it up here than have it go off in the back of a pick-up truck."

However, after shooting the substance and testing it, Otter made the decision to empty the substance from the container and take it away. The test, Otter said, showed that the substance was a strong oxidizer, consistent with sodium peroxide. It would require a large amount of water to create a reaction. Otter said he decided against spraying water on the substance due to the risk of possible contamination.


So, I was out in the field during this weirdness, but nevertheless, it did happen in Barstow. On a main street.


You might also be interested to note that, in the same edition, the largest photo on the front page was of one of my crewmates, Neal Halloran, from when we were all teaching a geology lesson to 4th graders at the Desert Discovery Center. It was accompanied only by a two-sentence caption. I guess they just don't have enough nice pictures to put on the front page? The first edition of this newspaper I ever saw had a picture of a car driving with sand blowing around it, with a caption explaining that it had been a very windy couple of days here in Barstow.