Employee photographs are now standard on identification badges at the Pine Bluff Arsenal after a security breach earlier this year, the operator of the incinerator at the Pine Bluff Arsenal told a citizens panel Tuesday.

David Reber, the project general manager for Washington Group International, told the arsenal's Citizens Advisory Commission that the step was taken in the wake of a May occasion when five employees swapped security badges. Officials learned of the badge swapping in July.

In July, Reber told the commission that the badges were exchanged "to accomplish some work at the facility" and that no danger to the public resulted.

On Tuesday he told the commission that the old badges had X's on them and the new badges have the employees' photographs.

In other news, an employee at the Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Project at the Arsenal was taken to the arsenal's health clinic after coming in contact Tuesday with sodium permanganate solution during routine work, officials said.

The solution is used to clean the metal containers at the nonstockpile ton containerrecycling facility, where empty containers are decontaminated and cleaned for recycling.

No chemical agents were involved in the accident and the employee returned to work, officials said.

This story was published Wednesday, September 28, 2005.