IOLA ? A terrorism task force is looking into the circumstances surrounding two unsolicited job applications sent to the Iola water treatment plant just weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

No one took much notice when the e-mail applications from two Muslim men were sent to the plant in late July.

“There was no reason for anyone to think anything about the applications at that time,” City Administrator Doug Colvin said.

Since the attack, national and state leaders have expressed concern about the vulnerability of rural water systems.

Allen Keller, the city’s new human resources director, recently became concerned when he noticed the applications from a Saudi Arabian living in the United States and from a man living in Pakistan.

“They just jumped out at me,” Keller said, “particularly since they both were for water treatment jobs.”

One application showed up on a city computer July 21, the other July 23.

“It may be just a coincidence that they applied two days apart and that both were unsolicited applications,” Colvin said. “We did fill a job at the water plant in August, but it never was advertised on our Internet site.”

Tom Williams, special agent for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, was told about the applications. He said he found them peculiar, since they were made two days apart.

Williams turned the information over to the task force in Kansas City, Mo., which includes federal agents.

The task force is “looking into it to determine if it is a benign coincidence or something more sinister,” FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said Friday.

The Saudi national, who said he lived in Palatine, Ill., said in his application that he had 16 years’ experience in various water treatment procedures with the Royal Saudi Air Force, in India and Toronto, Canada. More recently, the man said he had worked with a security firm in Illinois.

The Pakistani, in his mid-20s, said he had worked the past five years in a fertilizer plant in Punjab, Pakistan.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, cities throughout the nation were told to enhance security at utility plants and distribution systems, including those having to do with water.

Iola put a gate at the entrance to the complex that holds the city’s water and power plants, in an effort to better control who visits the site.

Construction will start later this year on a new $8 million water plant to replace the one used by the city since the 1930s. A chain link fence will be put around the structure.