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Chicago -
Gasoline fumes coming from a sewer prompted a HazMat that shut down two
Cook County courtrooms Tuesday afternoon in the West Side Lawndale
neighborhood.
A Level 1 HazMat was called to the building at
Flournoy Street and Kedzie Avenue about noon, according to Fire Media
Affairs Dir. Larry Langford.
Fire crews did not evacuate the building although some
people may have gone out of the courthouse on their own, Langford
said.
The HazMat was secured at 1:39 p.m. and fire crews
determined it was caused by gasoline fumes from a nearby sewer, Langford
said. There were no reports of injuries.
Two
branch courtrooms in the First Municipal District that are located in
the Chicago Police Department's Harrison District facility were
temporarily closed as fire crews responded to the "noxious fumes,"
according to a release from the office of Circuit Court of Cook County
Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans.
-----------------------
FREDRICKSON, Wash. -- About
20 employees have been evacuated from a Whirlpool warehouse in
Fredrickson while hazardous materials teams check out a report of threat
inside the building.
Central
Pierce fire spokesperson Stephanie Glass tells KIRO 7 50 large batteries
inside the building are being examined as the source of the problem.
Glass says the batteries weigh about 4,000 pounds
apiece.
It's not clear what the
batteries are used for. They were on a charging station, and the
ventilation fans quit for some reason, causing the batteries to overheat
and expel a toxic gas.
Hazardous
materials teams from Pierce County and Tacoma are staging outside the
facility before teams go in to isolate the threat.
Crews have cut power to the building.
-----------------------
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- More than 20 employees at an
iron and metal business in the South Valley are recovering from a scare
involving hazardous materials. It happened around 3:00 p.m. at the
business on K Street in Tulare.
Workers there said they
started feeling sick after they tried crushing a storage tank that had
been dropped off for recycling.
The tank still had chlorine
inside a hazmat team was called in and Tulare's fire chief says it was a
challenge trying to get all of the patients to hospitals
nearby.
The fire department is using surveillance video to
help determine who dropped off the tank.
-----------------------
TOWN OF
ELDORADO =97 The Fond du Lac County HAZMAT crew was called to a spill
involving an unknown substance along Highway 41 in the town of Eldorado
Tuesday afternoon.
Sgt. Jeff Bonack of the Fond du Lac County Sheriff=92s
Department said the Eldorado fire chief noticed a large pile of a
suspicious, powdery white substance lying on the shoulder of the
southbound lane of the Country Trunk N exit ramp around 1:36
p.m.
=93As of this time we still don=92t know what the
substance is but the HAZMAT crew determined that it was of a negative
acidity and didn=92t seem to be anything of concern,=94 Bonack said. =93It
was a rather large pile, measuring 6-by-6 feet and 1 foot
deep.=94
Responding to the scene was the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources, the Wisconsin State Patrol, the Fond du Lac County
Sheriff=92s Department and Veolia hazardous waste
services.
The exit ramp was closed to traffic for approximately
two hours.
-----------------------
WOODWARD, Okla. --
One
person was hurt in a chemical plant fire near the airport in Woodward,
located in northwestern Oklahoma.
Woodward
County emergency manager Matt Lehenbauer told Eyewitness News 5 that
crews from three counties -- Woodward, Harper and Ellis -- extinguished
a phosphorous fire at the Deep Water Chemical Plant five miles west of
Woodward near the airport and an industrial area.
Four businesses were evacuated to the north of the
site.
The nature of the one injury
is not known at this time.
-----------------------
CARBONDALE, Ill. (AP) -- Southern Illinois
University says the damage estimate from a chemical fire on the
Carbondale campus continues to rise.
SIU
spokesman Rod Sievers says the damage from last week's blaze could be
more than $1 million. That's four times the initial estimate. The latest
projection includes at least $500,000 in damage to the lab room, as well
as another $500,000 worth of equipment.
Nobody
was hurt in last Wednesday's fire, although a student who might have
inhaled some fumes was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Authorities
also evacuated the building.
Officials say the fire began when the student was
cleaning equipment with flammable hydrocarbons.
Sievers
says a portion of the building remains closed.
-----------------------
A truck
driver managed to unhitch his chemical cargo moments before it exploded
on a highway west of Brisbane.
Authorities are still
working to clear the charred remains of the trailer after the blast on
the Gore Highway at Millmerran.
One house has been evacuated
and the family won't be allowed to return home until the debris is
cleared away.
Authorities say the truck driver acted quickly when he
realised there was a fire.
He managed to unhitch his trailer, laden with drums of
herbicide, from the truck's cabin moments before the cargo exploded
about 1.30am (AEST) on Wednesday.
The Queensland Fire and
Rescue Service (QFRS) said the fire ignited chemicals held in 20-litre
drums, causing them to explode.
Firefighters in protective
gear and breathing apparatus extinguished the blaze around 5am
(AEST).
The Department of Community Safety said the chemicals
were herbicides.
-----------------------
NEW BEDFORD =97 The fisherman who was blistered and
hospitalized after dredging up a chemical catch suffered from rare
mustard gas exposure, according to Edward Boyer, chief of the division
of medical toxicology at the UMass Memorial Medical Center in
Worcester.
UMass Medical Center sent blood and urine samples to a
state laboratory in Boston, which made the confirmation, said Boyer, who
is also a professor of emergency medicine at UMass Medical
School.
"There have been five exposures to mustard gas in the
United States that we know of since World War I ... that have been
published in the literature," he said Tuesday.
-----------------------
NEW
BEDFORD =97 Four fishermen were taken to the hospital Monday after
appearing to have dredged up some dangerous chemicals while they were
fishing off Long Island.
The chemical is believed to be some kind of "nerve
agent, so that's leading people to speculate that it's a possibility of
mustard gas," New Bedford Fire Chief Brian Faria said at a news
conference Monday afternoon.
The fishermen were aboard the ESS Pursuit, which was
dredging for clams when the crews pulled up canisters from the sea. The
Coast Guard, the New Bedford Fire Department and a man who was aboard
the ship all gave different accounts of how many canisters were pulled
up, although Faria said he believes they dated back to World War
I.
Kevin O'Sullivan, 33, of New Bedford was one of the
fisherman on the ship and described the canisters as about 1 foot by 3
inches, resembling a large bullet.
Dredging up these types of
curiosities "happens all the time," he said, adding that the canisters
were thrown overboard.
Jeff Hall, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, echoed
him, saying, "There's places all over the country where they've dumped
munitions in the past." And in April, another clam boat brought in a
haul of active, World War I-era grenades to the Wright Street shellfish
plant.
However, a fellow crewmember =97 whom O'Sullivan knew
simply as "Kosta" =97 later said he'd noticed one of the canisters was
"leaking or cracked."
Kosta eventually began to blister, according to
O'Sullivan, who said the man had one blister measuring approximately 4
inches by 2 inches on his forearm and a second on his
leg.
-----------------------
BUCKEYE
-- Two employees were hospitalized after they were burned at a chemical
plant Tuesday morning.
According
to Chief Bob Costello of the Buckeye Fire Department, the two Thatcher
Chemical Company employees were working on a pipeline when some sulfuric
acid spilled, spraying them in the face.
One of the employees received serious injuries and was
airlifted to Maricopa Medical Center. The other was also burned and was
taken to the medical center by ground ambulance.
-----------------------
WASHINGTON -- The EPA has
concluded that formaldehyde is carcinogenic when inhaled by humans, a
finding that could lead to stringent new regulations of the widely used
chemical.
Used in the production of countless consumer products,
formaldehyde attained a degree of national infamy after Hurricane
Katrina when some of those living in the 120,000 trailers provided by
FEMA as temporary housing for storm victims reported respiratory and
other health problems after prolonged exposure to the chemical, which is
contained in wood products in the trailers.
The EPA's
draft assessment of the health perils of formaldehyde, released
Wednesday, is now subject to 90 days of public comment and a nine-month
peer review by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, on its way
likely to forming the basis for new regulation of formaldehyde levels in
myriad products.
Susan Poag / The Times-Picayune
FEMA
workers left, Megan Webbeking and Rachel Rodi distributed formaldehyde
information in Ironton community in Plaquemines parish in 2007 as part
of a statewide effort by FEMA for inform residents of FEMA provided
housing units about formaldehyde in the trailers.
"There is
sufficient evidence of a causal relationship between formaldehyde
exposure and cancers of the upper respiratory tracts, with the strongest
evidence for nasopharyngeal and sino-nasal cancers," the 1,043-page
draft assessment concludes. "There is also sufficient evidence of a
causal association between formaldehyde exposure and lymphohematopoietic
cancers, with the strongest evidence of Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia,
particularly myleloid leukemia."
-----------------------
A hazmat
team responded Monday morning to an unidenitifed chemical spill at
an Oceanfront hotel. No one was injured, but two workers were treated
and released at the scene, a fire department official
said.
Some guests and staff at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront
Hilton, on Atlantic Avenue, were instructed to stay clear of a
section of the hotel where a liquid chemical spilled in a storage
area about 9 a.m., the official said.
The
chemical was mopped up with towels and a worker called 911. The
towels were later removed by the hazmat team. No one was
evacuated.
The hotel was declared safe and the scene cleared
about 11:45 a.m., the fire official said.
-----------------------
US_NJ: HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
SPILL IN BASEMENT LAB AT STEVENS INSTITUTE IN HOBOKEN SICKENS SEVERAL
PEOPLE AND TRIGGERS EVACUATION OF 6-STORY BUILDING - NJ.COM, http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/hoboken
/index.ssf?/base/news-2/127597830850860.xml&coll=3
HOBOKEN -
A hazardous materials spill yesterday in a basement lab at the Burchard
Building at the Stevens Institute of Technology forced the evacuation of
the six-story facility, officials said.
The
problem occurred when someone placed a chemical in a container and then
placed that container in a common garbage container, Hoboken Battalion
Chief John O'Brien said.
The
material leaked out and mixed with materials in the larger container,
causing respiratory distress for a number of people in the building,
O'Brien said, noting at least one person was taken to an area
hospital.
The spill was reported at 3:22 p.m. and people were
allowed to re-enter the building at roughly 8:15 p.m., O'Brien
said.
The Hoboken Fire Department's haz-mat unit responded
to the scene and the Jersey City Fire Department provided backup,
O'Brien said.
Wearing protective suits, the Hoboken firefighters
removed the hazardous materials from the building and a private company
took it away, he said.
The exact material that caused the distress could not
be isolated, O'Brien said.
KEN THORBOURNE
-----------------------
At least three people were killed this afternoon=97and
several others injured=97after a natural gas facility exploded near
Pecan Plantation, Texas, according to WFAA-TV (Dallas/Fort
Worth).
Onlookers saw a huge
fireball and smoke. WFAA-TV shows footage of a large pipeline
burning.
Enterprise Products Partners owns the pipeline, which
is part of the Texas Intrastate system, according to
Reuters.
Hospitals the injured were
taken to include Dallas=92s Parkland Hospital and Glen Rose Medical
Center in Glen Rose, Texas, according to media reports.
The American Gas Association (AGA) this past May urged
members of Congress to move swiftly in reauthorizing pipeline safety
legislation. The AGA says such legislation has =93significantly improved
the transportation of energy in the United States.=94
-----------------------
MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va., June 7 (UPI) -- A drill crew tapped into
an old coal mine in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle Monday, igniting
a methane gas blast that injured seven people, officials
said.
The Wheeling News-Register reported officials were
investigating the 1:15 a.m. accident that also closed a portion of U.S.
250 for a time. The newspaper said the crew had been working into the
night and drilled through the abandoned mine owned by Consol
Energy.
Marshall County Chief Deputy Kevin Cecil said the
workers had little time to react.
"We know there were six
workers on the well when they started to hear what the men described as
a rumbling," Cecil said.
-----------------------
The
investigation into what sparked a two-alarm fire at an Irving chemical
company Monday morning is ongoing, though preliminary indications point
toward a static spark igniting the fire.
The fire started on the roof of the
Schnee-Morehead company in the 100 block of North Nursery in Irving just
before 7 a.m. Monday, investigators said. Company officials were
able to evacuate all employees, and no one was injured.
One witness told NBCDFW he saw black smoke and flames
coming from the building. Witnesses on the scene reportedly heard
at least two explosions.
"The
smoke became a flicker of a flame and the flame grew and next thing you
know fire trucks are coming" said Marlon Dickson.
No
Injuries in Irving Chemical Plant Fire
Firefighters said they were able to quickly douse the
blaze.
A spokesperson for the
Irving Fire Department said they decided to upgrade the fire to a
two-alarm due to firefighters fatigue from the hot temperatures
outside.
According to the
Irving-based company=92s website, Schnee-Morehead is a producer of
silicone, polyurethane, acrylic and foam
sealants.
"The area where the fire
occurred is where we make our polyurethane based sealants" said Schnee
Morehead director of operations, Jim Matthews.
Because of that, firefighters had to take extra
precautions to keep the run-off from going into the storm
drains.
-----------------------
India
(Reuters) - A court on Monday found the Indian unit of U.S. chemicals
firm Union Carbide and seven Indian employees guilty of negligence over
one of the world's worst industrial accidents that killed thousands of
people in 1984.
-----------------------
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