Town evacuated to escape noxious ammonia cloud

BONITA, La. - Residents began returning to this rural farming town Sunday, about 13 hours after a noxious ammonia cloud released from a fertilizer tank forced an overnight evacuation.

Authorities went door-to-door, urging the town's more than 260 people, particularly those in a one mile radius on the tank, to leave town after the leak was discovered on a cotton farm Saturday night. State troopers in hazardous materials suits were able to close the fertilizer tank's valve early Sunday, and the cloud had dissipated by midday.

The 30,000-gallon tank held anhydrous ammonia, a caustic alkali that can damage the lungs. A manager at the farm where the tank was kept estimated that 10,000 to 13,000 gallons of ammonia was released.

No serious injuries were reported, though four people were given oxygen after inhaling fumes, said state police spokesman Cam Douglas. By midday Sunday, the cloud had dissipated, U.S. Highway 165 was reopened and residents were allowed to return.

Douglas said the open valve on the tank aroused suspicion that somebody had tried to steal the anhydrous ammonia, which can be used to make the drug methamphetamine.

State environmental officials on the scene Sunday afternoon said the air was safe to breathe, although, ''you still get a little bit of smell,'' said Lt. Keith Robertson of the Morehouse Parish Sheriff's Office.

State police were uncertain how many people left the town in northeast Louisiana, near the Arkansas state line. Sixty to 80 evacuees went to a Red Cross shelter in Bastrop, about 20 miles away.

James Clark, whose family spent the night at the shelter, said he got a telephone call telling him to evacuate as his family was preparing for bed.

''I grabbed my four kids. My wife and I ran and got in the car and kicked off,'' Clark said Sunday. He said he could smell the ammonia as he headed for the car.

The farm's owners had considered lockable valves for the tank, farm manager Craig Oliphant said, but he said that might prompt thieves to damage the tank to get at the ammonia.