The crystal digging area at Salt Plains Wildlife Refuge has been closed indefinitely after a Boy Scout digging for crystals Saturday had a reaction to a mysterious chemical in a vial he unearthed.

Armed guards sealed off the entrance to the 40-acre crystal digging area of the refuge in Alfalfa County. Members of an Army chemical unit will come to the refuge to identify the material.

The boy accidentally broke a glass vial containing a yellow liquid, said refuge manager John Brock. The material caused the boy to cough and his eyes to burn and his nose to run.

“It was pungent enough to make him run away from it,” Brock said.

Brock said he talked to the boy’s father Tuesday, and the boy has not experienced any lingering ill effects.

“That was our first concern. We’ve never had any problems before,” Brock said.

Brock said he and other officials returned to the site later and uncovered as many as 10 more glass vials, which he said are 6 or 7 inches long and sealed on both ends. The vials appeared to have been there a long time, he said.

“We didn’t know what we were dealing with so we backed out,” Brock said. “My worse concern is that there may be something else buried out there.”

He would not speculate on how long the crystal digging area will be closed, but he said this weekend’s crystal digging contest, part of the annual Birding and Crystal Festival, has been canceled. The bird-watching portion and other activities in different areas of the refuge still will be held Saturday and Sunday.

Brock said he did not find out about the incident until Monday and called Alfalfa County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities did not know what they were dealing with and sealed off the area and are maintaining a guard 24 hours a day, he said.

“There will be a lot of folks disappointed because they can’t go out there and dig,” he said. “We can’t reasonably let people go out there and dig. We had no choice but to close it.”

Members of the Army’s 22nd Chemical Battalion (technical escort) are being sent from Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland today to identify and neutralize the material, said Karen Drewin, spokeswoman for Depart-ment of Defense.

“We have assessment equipment to handle these kinds of items,” Drewin said.

The response team is scheduled to arrive Friday and will be at the refuge through the weekend.

After the Army determines the identity of the chemical, Brock said he will discuss the situation with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials in Tulsa and decide what to do next. There will have to be additional testing, he said, which will not be done this week.

“We need to find out what the chemical was and how much risk there is,” Brock said. “We have a meeting set up to discuss what else we need to do. We must have reasonable assurance of non-hazard to the public before we allow people back in.”

Between 1942 and 1946, the area was used as a practice bombing range by U.S. pilots. Last summer, a military contractor performed an investigation of unexploded ordinance and contaminants at the refuge. Remnants of the old practice bombs and shell casings have been located on the site, according to authorities.

There is no evidence the refuge ever was used as a chemical weapons testing or storage site, said Ross Adkins, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Tulsa. Adkins said authorities believe the glass vials were produced by the military. But he said it is unclear what the material is, who put it there and how long it has been there.

The area was established in 1930 as a wildlife refuge and breeding ground for birds. A member of Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, the refuge is home to thousands of ducks, geese and other migrating birds. It also is known for its selenite, a crystallized form of gypsum that takes on a variety of shapes as it forms just below the salt-encrusted surface. The crystals are seldom found more than 2 feet below the surface.



Each year, more than 30,000 people dig for crystals from April to October. This is the first time anything other than crystals has been found at the designated dig sites, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.



Staff writer Robert Barron and The Associated Press contributed to this story.