By OWEN BOSS
Staff Writer
HADLEY — When Beverly Rhodes decided it was high time to clean out the 200-year-old barn behind her Hibbard Lane home Thursday afternoon she had no idea she’d uncover a five-gallon container labeled Picric acid — a highly unstable explosive compound.
The discovery, made at about 2 p.m., prompted Rhodes to call the local police and fire departments, who in turn summoned a State Fire Marshall’s Bomb Squad Unit and closed off Rte. 47 from French Street to Mount Warner Road.
“I had a guy over here helping me clean out the barn and as we went along we found an old drum labeled Picric acid and he said he wasn’t sure if he could haul it away because it may be hazardous,” Rhodes said. “So we both went upstairs and looked up what it was on the internet.”
What the pair found, Rhodes said, was shocking.
According to James McNalley, a field officer for the Boston Division of the state’s Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Picric acid is a highly sensitive explosive compound, similar to TNT, that was used to trigger controlled explosions during demolitions and was used in artillery shells by the U.S. military throughout World War I.
“The state police bomb squad unit is on scene and they are making sure there’s nothing else dangerous in there they have to worry about,” McNalley said Thursday night. “They may have to put another compound in there to blast it or just burn it off safely, but they’ll be the ones to take care of it.”
Rhodes said the barn was left to her by longtime Hadley resident Alfred I. Szarkowski, who passed away at the age of 80 in October and for whom she had been a in-house caregiver.
“That drum could have been sitting in there for decades without anyone even seeing it,” Rhodes said. “It was under a huge pile of stuff and some of the things in that barn have been in there forever.”
Although he didn’t say whether emergency responders had determined that the drum contained the highly volatile substance, Hadley Fire Capt. Michael Spanknebel said area residents should stay away from the barn and surrounding buildings until further notice.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com
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