Bomb found at Illinois ethanol plant, prompting evacuations

Peoria officials said a bomb was found at BioUrja Renewables and later defused; FBI said it is investigating

Residents were ordered to evacuate parts of an Illinois community on Friday after the mayor there said authorities found a bomb at a local ethanol- and alcohol-production plant.

The discovery reported at BioUrja Renewables in Peoria triggered a mandatory evacuation over a one-mile evacuation zone encompassing sections of that city as well as the adjacent municipality of East Peoria.

“It is real – this is a real thing,” Peoria’s mayor, Rita Ali, said, according to local news outlet WMBD. “We know that is a real threat. We know it is a bomb.”

Peoria’s police chief, Brad Dixon, said at a news conference early on Saturday that bomb technicians had rendered the object in question safe.

But Dixon asked for the public’s patience as investigators searched BioUrja Renewals’ expansive facility for other explosive devices, as the Peoria news outlet WEEK reported.

“We don’t know if there are other devices,” Ali remarked.

Meanwhile, Ryan Presley of the FBI, who is in charge of the bureau’s field office about an hour away in Springfield, Illinois, said agents would pursue whoever was responsible “tirelessly” and “bring them to justice”.

At about 7.05pm local time on Friday, the Peoria police department had announced that officers were “actively investigating a reported bomb threat at BioUrja Renewables”. The agency then urged “anyone who lives or works within a one-mile radius of the facility to immediately evacuate their homes and businesses until further notice”.

The police’s statement said the evacuation notice had been “issued out of an abundance of caution while officers and emergency personnel investigate the threat”, which officials initially referred to as a suspicious package. The city offered the Manual Academy school as a temporary shelter, and police said anyone who needed assistance evacuating their home or business could call for help.

In a separate statement, the municipal government of neighboring East Peoria acknowledged that the evacuation zone associated with the package at BioUrja Renewables extended into part of that city. The East Peoria government said it expected to provide an update at about 9am local time on Saturday, but in the meantime all evacuations would remain in place.

“This is not a hoax,” the Illinois state senator Dave Koehler said during the early Saturday news conference. “This has gone beyond that … This is serious. This is serious.”

Friday’s BioUrja Renewables case came amid a particularly chaotic day in the US marked by a nationwide Federal Aviation Administration-ordered nationwide ground stop at US airports that was in effect for about four hours, canceling or delaying more than 11,000 US flights.

The country’s nerves were also frayed by a tanker which struck a cruise ship docked on the Mississippi River in New Orleans on Friday afternoon. First responders had to rescue passengers from the river’s water after the cruise ship turned on its side, and there were more than 30 injuries reported. But none of those injuries were critical, and there were no fatalities reported in association with the crash.