Chemical Incident Reporting – Week of 5-11-24

NOTE: See here for series background.

West Lafayette, IN – 5-6-24

Local news stories: Here, here, and here.

Fertilizer leak from farm storage tank resulted in fish kill along a ten mile stretch of a creek. No other injuries or damages reported.

Not CSB reportable.

Jacksonville, NC – 5-14-24

Local news reports: Here and here.

An unidentified chemical outgassed from storage tank at water treatment plant when delivery was loaded into the wrong tank. Local evacuations, no reported damage. City is not reporting what chemicals were involved.

This is not an unusual accident at water treatment plants (and many small chemical plants). Frequently the chemical outgassed is chlorine when any of a list of other chemicals used at water treatment plants is added to a sodium hypochlorite (industrial grade bleach) storage tank. It is frequently accompanied by heat and steam because of the exotherm.

Not CSB reportable.

Phoenix, AZ – 5-15-24

Local news reports: Here, here, here, here, and here.

Waste truck driver killed when pressure relief device on hazmat trailer unexpectedly released, throwing him 20-ft. No reported damages.

Not CSB reportable since this was a transportation related release.

MACEDONIA, OH – 5-16-24

Local News reports: Here, here, and here.

A chemical tank-truck burst during loading of sodium hydroxide. Three people were injured, two hospitalized. Interesting drone video of accident scene.

CSB reportable. Even though it was a tank truck involved incident, it took place during loading operations so that makes this a fixed site incident.