Nov 14 (Reuters) – State and federal officers on Saturday searched a biofuels plant in Peoria, Illinois, for explosives after a device deemed a “credible threat” was found nearby, officials said, prompting a notice for residents to evacuate an area with a 1-mile radius.
The evacuation order was lifted on Saturday, almost a full day after the device was discovered on Friday close to the BioUrja ethanol plant in Peoria, a city of about 110,000 people, some 150 miles (240 km) southwest of Chicago, officials said. Bomb technicians rendered it safe, Peoria police said.
Law enforcement personnel on Saturday afternoon finished their search of the sprawling facility, which is the size of 44-1/2 football fields, Peoria Police Chief Brad Dixon said.
A standard American football field occupies roughly 1.3 acres (0.5 hectares).
The Peoria Police Department said in a statement on Facebook that nothing “of concern” was found and the evacuation notice was lifted.
The owner of the plant, the BioUrja Group of Houston, Texas, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident began on Friday after the plant informed the police that it had received a bomb threat. Dixon on Saturday said he would not call the device a bomb because the process for determining its composition was ongoing.
“I can just tell you it was deemed a credible threat,” Dixon told reporters at a briefing. “There’s an extensive criminal investigation going on.”
Officials determined a potential blast radius of 1 mile based not solely on the device itself, but also on the materials nearby, Dixon said.
Officials from the FBI and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told reporters that their personnel, including explosives experts, were helping to search the facility and were aiding in the hunt for whoever was responsible for the device.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Sergio Non and Franklin Paul)
