Report Urges City Monitor Nerve Gas

Scientific researchers at Harvard and other local laboratories may someday have to gain municipal permission to test certain toxic substances if the city of Cambridge adopts the recommendations of its Scientific Advisory Committee.

In an official report before the Cambridge City Council last night, committee chairman Sheldon Krimsky told local officials that nerve gas agents--like those tested at the the controversial Arthur D. Little Laboratory for defense contracts -- should be registered with the city's health commissioner.

Last spring, Cambridge enacted an ordinance directed at Arthur D. Little which prohibited the storage, testing, or transportation of nerve gas agents within city boundaries. Soon afterward, the North Cambridge laboratory challenged the city statute in a legal suit still pending before Middlesex Superior Court.

Because the suit centers around whether the Defense Department or the city has the supreme authority to regulate the laboratory, several city officials predict the question will not be settled until the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.