Alabama poison plant targeted over environmental, terrorism fears
12/12/2004, 12:36 p.m. CT
By JAY REEVES
The Associated Press
OXFORD, Ala. (AP) — The small factory at the end of Burton Street doesn't look like much from the outside, but its product is getting attention from Washington to the other side of the world.
Virtually unknown outside the neighborhood where it has been operating since the late 1950s, Tull Chemical Co. is the only known producer of Compound 1080, developed as a rat poison in German-occupied territories during World War II. Once banned in the United States, a teaspoonful could kill dozens.
Compound 1080 is now used only sparingly in the United States but more widely in New Zealand to control outdoor predators and pests. Animal welfare groups and other environmentalists say it should again be outlawed because it kills too indiscriminately.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., has asked the Department of Homeland Security to ban production of the odorless, tasteless poison for another reason: the belief by the FBI and others that Compound 1080 — the most toxic pesticide registered by the World Health Organization — could be used by terrorists to poison U.S. water supplies. There's no known antidote.
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