'Smallpox' envelope harmless.

Byline: The Register-Guard

A suspicious package that sparked a smallpox scare Thursday at the Eugene Airport was not a threat or a hoax, but someone's poorly discarded trash, the FBI said.

An employee found the 8 1/2 -by-11-inch envelope labeled "smallpox" in a restricted-access walkway shortly before 5 a.m., airport manager Bob Noble said. A hazardous materials team stationed at the airport contained the envelope and the FBI sent it to a laboratory for testing.

The walkway near the ground-level Horizon Airlines B gates was closed off until 2 p.m. when the tests came back clean, Noble said. According to the FBI's Beth Anne Steele, the envelope from an out-of-state hospital contained written material from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about smallpox. It also held information about hospital procedures for triage and guidelines for handling patients with smallpox symptoms.

The FBI never considered the envelope a credible threat, Steele said. "If it were a hoax or a real threat, we would look at it further, but it never rose to that level," she said.

The FBI investigates and prosecutes hoaxes the same as real threats, Steele said. A person who threatens use of a weapon of mass destruction faces a maximum punishment of life in prison.

No flights were delayed as a result of the investigation, and nearby waiting areas remained open to passengers, Noble said.