FBI Continues Search in Anthrax Inquiry

Dozens of FBI agents and pond divers continued to comb a western Maryland forest Friday for evidence related to last year’s anthrax attacks.

About 100 federal agents searched woods and ponds here Friday for what the FBI told local officials were “evidentiary items related to the anthrax investigation.”

The search, which began Thursday, was to continue through next week, according to Mayor Jennifer Dougherty. “They’re going to do a complete search of what is in the ponds,” she said.

The FBI search area is in the Frederick Municipal Forest, a 7,000-acre tract wedged between Gambrill and Cunningham Falls state parks about eight miles north of the city in the Catoctin Mountains. The forest contains a reservoir that is one of several municipal drinking water sources.

The search site, a clearing called Sand Flats, includes at least two of about a dozen spring-fed ponds, neighbors said.

The Catoctins, part of the Blue Ridge chain, are about an hour’s drive from Washington. Popular with hikers and mountain bikers, the public woodlands include two state parks and Catoctin Mountain Park, the national preserve that surrounds the Camp David presidential retreat.

The FBI said they weren’t looking for anthrax spores, according to city spokeswoman Nancy Poss. She said scientists on the investigative team were monitoring water in the area for possible contamination.

The site is about eight miles from the former home of Dr. Steven Hatfill, an ex-Army biological weapons researcher the government has labeled a “person of interest” in the anthrax investigation.

Hatfill has denied involvement in the October 2001 attacks, in which five people died and 18 others were infected by letters containing anthrax spores. His former apartment has been searched three times.