When Mike Pittman received a pamphlet in the mail about chemical agents that might be found around his Ruark Road home in Bibb County, he was mystified.

He had many questions about how World War II chemical test kits could have ended up in his yard.

"You'd think if it's that dangerous, they'd pick it up when they're done," he said. "Was it like Easter egg training with the chemicals hidden, or how did they lose all that stuff?"

None of the kits have actually been found in the area since World War II, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been conducting a public education campaign so residents and developers can be on the lookout for chemical agent identification sets that were used at the former Herbert Smart Field between 1942 and 1943.

They contained chemical agents such as tear gas and mustard gas in glass vials, said David Roulo, Corps project manager.

The east Bibb County neighborhoods of Lanier Heights and Wheeler Heights are the nearest to the area, which was used by the military during the war and returned to the city of Macon in 1946. Most of the former airfield is now Macon Downtown Airport, but the Georgia Forestry Commission and a few businesses are also located on portions of the land.

The Corps has sent an educational video and teacher's guide about the kits to Bernd Elementary School, provided local officials with fact sheets for developers who might dig in the vicinity and sent a brochure to 800 homeowners who live in a one-mile radius, said Billy Birdwell, Savannah district communications director.

A public meeting has been held, but Pittman and some other residents still hadn't heard about the kits until receiving the pamphlet. Pittman had just bought a house that had been vacant a long time, and he often runs over various types of trash when mowing.

"Do I need to be scared about that or what?" he wondered.

Corps officials say no.

"We have no reason at this point to believe any of these are at the facility," Roulo said.

The Corps searched Army documents and media accounts and interviewed residents to check whether any of the sets had been encountered during the years.

However, if residents do find any of the sets, they shouldn't disturb the materials, Roulo said. Instead, they should mark the area and call the fire department.

A study conducted for the Corps by Zapata Engineering concluded "the health risk of encountering an intact (set) is minimal."

The sets were used to train soldiers to recognize if they were being exposed to chemical agents in battle. The chemicals came in 3-foot tall metal cylinders containing four metal cans, each with 12 vials inside, said Wilson Walters, safety and occupational health specialist for the Corps.

Corps documents indicate the vials would be placed in a small hole in the ground with a blasting cap beneath. When the blasting cap broke the vial, soldiers would walk through the gas and sniff it so they could identify it.

Walters said its hard to break the glass vials, but the gas inside them would not have become less potent over time.

Herbert Smart is one of three former defense sites in Bibb County. The other two, the former Camp Wheeler in Twiggs and east Bibb counties and the former Macon Naval Ordnance Landfill in south Bibb County, are known to be contaminated.

The Corps is in the process of deciding how much to clean up the former Camp Wheeler. Corps contractors have found unexploded ordnance there in areas that were once used for weapons practice and maneuvers during the world wars.

The naval landfill site has been nominated for the Superfund list of high-priority hazardous waste cleanups.