CHICORA — A married father of three young children was up front with state police called last week to his family’s two-story house — a potentially hazardous and dangerous site.

“He admitted that he had cooked methamphetamine that morning and he never removed the pot bottle,” Trooper Michael Lewis testified at Harley D. Stone’s preliminary hearing Tuesday.

The blunt admission grabbed Lewis’ immediate attention.

“My concern was that it was still active,” said the trooper, a member of the police vice unit.

Aware of the explosive nature of the toxic chemicals used to make methamphetamine at home, authorities soon cleared away from the two-story, yellow house at 211 W. Slippery Rock St. in Chicora.

A decontamination team would later defuse the alarm, dismantling any semblance of the rudimentary meth lab and gathering evidence — including compressed gas cylinders, lithium, acetone, lye and drain cleaner.

District Judge Lewis Stoughton, following Trooper Lewis’ testimony, ordered Stone, 32, held for trial on multiple felony charges and other lesser charges stemming from the March 17 discovery of the meth lab.

Afterward, Stone was returned to the Butler County Prison, where he’s being held on $25,000 bail.

His wife, Jenna M. Stone, 31, faces similar charges and her preliminary hearing before Stoughton is set for April 19.

She remains in the Clarion County Jail on $100,000 bail, for the Butler County charges and on warrants for probation violations in Clarion and Jefferson counties.

It was Clarion County probation officers who stumbled onto the alleged meth lab when they went looking for Jenna Stone at her house.

She was arrested in the home, where the probation officers noticed the meth-producing trappings.

Vice officers from the Butler barracks were notified and Lewis was soon there to confirm the findings.

“We found the precursors for a methamphetamine production lab,” he told prosecutor Russ Karl, a county assistant district attorney.

He ticked off some of the uncovered ingredients that make the crystal meth cocktail: Coleman camp fuel, Drano, ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate, hydrochloric acid, red phosphorous and lithium.

Components to make and smoke the highly addictive central nervous system stimulant were also found. Those included plastic containers, tubing, Mason jars, coffee filters and incandescent light bulbs.

Lewis testified that within the house — where the Stones live with their children, ages 5, 6 and 9 — was a typical “one-pot” or “shake and bake” lab.

The method is one by which methamphetamine is made in one vessel, typically a 2-liter soda bottle or plastic Gatorade bottle, by combining unstable ingredients in the bottle and shaking it.

Using the simple technique, Lewis said, meth cooks can whip up a small batch of the drug in as little as 30 minutes,

But one little mistake can cause an explosion, and the potential for disaster, not just for those making the drug but for innocent victims living or standing nearby.

Lewis said he backed out of the house and placed the local fire department on stand-by. The state police Clandestine Lab Response Team was soon on scene to conduct its cleanup operation.

Harley Stone, who was away when the alleged lab was initially discovered, eventually returned home.

After being read his Miranda rights against self incrimination, he talked.

“Mr. Stone was nothing but cooperative,” Lewis testified. “He made a confession at that time that he was producing meth.”

The suspected lab, however, was not a revenue-generating enterprise, Lewis said during questioning by Stone’s attorney.

There was “no indication” the defendant was selling the drug, the trooper told public defender Maura Palumbi.

Police, he said, found only about one gram of methamphetamine.

“Is that indicative of personal use?” Palumbi asked.

“Yes,” Lewis replied.

He also acknowledged on cross-examination that the alleged meth-making evidence that police seized from the house could be construed as “common household items.”

Stone was held for court on felony charges of operating a meth lab, manufacturing a controlled substance, producing meth with children present, storing chemical waste and illegally possessing chemicals.

Additionally, he was ordered to stand trial on several misdemeanor charges including drug possession and reckless endangerment.

Authorities noted, after the hearing, that the couple’s children are currently living with family members.