Further tests being conducted on powder that closed station

Eric Leake

Thursday, Sept. 30, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

Initial tests show a suspicious brown powder that prompted the evacuation of the KTNV Channel 13 station Tuesday was not hazardous, though it is still undergoing further tests.

Employees were able to return to the building Wednesday, officials said.

Clark County Fire Department Hazardous Materials Coordinator Richard Brenner said Wednesday that he understood tests showed the substance was not toxic and that DNA tests showed it to be neither viral nor bacterial.

Brenner said the final results of test cultures of the sample are pending and will take up to three days. He thinks the substance may be biological, so his office is culturing it in a petri dish.

"We want to be 100 percent sure, and the only way to be 100 percent sure is to grow it," he said.

The powder was taken to the state health lab in Reno for identification after it spilled out of an Oregon-postmarked letter and onto the desk of a receptionist at the local ABC affiliate, station officials said.

A similar letter with powder showed up Monday at an ABC affiliate outside Phoenix, Brenner said, though he cautioned against concluding that the powders are the same. Officials in Phoenix had not concluded what that substance was, Brenner said, and he declined to speculate on what either powder is.

He said if they are not the same, "we also keep track of who was on scene, who was in the building, just in case it comes back as something."

The Las Vegas television station building at 3355 S. Valley View Blvd. was evacuated and conducted operations from KVWB Channel 21. Employees were allowed to return to the KTNV building late Wednesday afternoon, said Jim Thomas, vice president of communications for Journal Broadcasting Group, which owns Channel 13.

Thomas said the station resumed broadcasting from its own studios at 11 p.m. Wednesday.

"I wouldn't hope to do anything like this again," he said. He thanked "a talented staff or employees who will not panic" and the people at KVWB.