The Department of Homeland Security has been notified of a homemade bomb discovered Wednesday along the train tracks which bring coal into TransAlta power plant outside Centralia. Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield said this morning the investigation is continuing, with assistance from the Washington State Patrol. The sheriffs office told Homeland Security about the incident, in case it ever became a case of domestic terrorism, according to Mansfield. He stressed its not, at this point.
“What were really waiting on now is the processing of the tank,” Mansfield said. Specialists with the state patrol are examining the components and hoping for fingerprints, according to the sheriff.
Detectives are considering the possibility the explosive fashioned from a five-gallon propane tank fell off of a coal car coming into the coal burning plant. It was found upside down in a ditch along railroad tracks near a trestle, about a mile from the power plant. The blasting cap on the device had burned, but the tank did not explode.
The sheriffs office said on Thursday they were not aware of any threats made toward TransAlta.
Earlier this week, the sheriffs office in Thurston County was called to investigate a suspicious fire on a train trestle along state Route 507 near McKenna and Yelm. Mansfield said there is no known link between the two incidents.
An agent from BNSF was at the Lewis County Sheriffs Office on Thursday because it was possible the device was carried over their railroad tracks. |