Eastbound lanes of I-70 prior to I-695 have been
reopened after a four car crash involving a truck carrying hazardous
chemicals closed them during Thursday's rush hour.
It happened
around 5 p.m.
Baltimore County Fire Officials say four vehicles,
including one carrying dry chlorine and sulfuric acid, collided.
Several people are injured and at least one person has been taken
to Shock Trauma
Fire crews worked to clean up the chemicals and
reopened the highway around 7:30 p.m.
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OTTAWA --
Interpol reports 85 hazmat-related violations identified during a recent
coordinated enforcement effort in New York, Michigan, and
Ontario.
The second operation of its kind, enforcement
agencies across the U.S. and Canada participated in a two-day operation
aimed at cracking down on the illegal transportation of hazardous
materials.
During the blitz on Aug. 17-18, the agencies checked
313 vehicles, identified 85 violations and launched two
investigations.
The operation, which also identified criminal gang
involvement in the illegal transport of hazmat, targeted major
transportation routes in the New York, Michigan and Ontario, according
to a release by Interpol, an international police organization, with 188
member countries.
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ROCKLAND -
Authorities recovered explosives during a raid of a Rockland home on
Thursday night, the fire marshal=E2=80=99s office said.
The man
arrested is a man police know well for this type of offence.
Robert
Rinaldi has been arrested several times for making explosives, most
recently in Plymouth in 2008.
Rinaldi was arrested and charged
with multiple counts of manufacturing fireworks, possession of
explosives and possession of component parts. The suspect could be the
first person charged with possession of component parts since a new bill
was passed that can punish people for having the parts for an explosive
but have not assembled them yet.
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EAST RIDGE, TN.(WRCB)-- On
Wednesday afternoon at around 12:30 East Ridge Police discovered a meth
lab at the Knights Inn on Ringgold Road after receiving an anonymous
tip.
Jamie A. Walston, age 29, of East Ridge was the
occupant of the room. He was arrested and charged with initiation of the
manufacture of meth, possession of schedule II (Meth), and possession of
drug paraphernalia.
Hazmat was called to remove
paraphernalia and dispose of dangerous chemicals in the room. Detectives
are working closely with the hotel owners to ensure the room is properly
cleaned and is safe.
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ALBANY, GA.
-- Around 11:30 Thursday morning, the Albany Fire Department, Dougherty
County Police, Dougherty Public Works, and the local Hazmat team
converged on Radium Springs Road.
A pecan sprayer lost a tire and
fell onto its side but the bigger concern was the puncture in the
sprayer=E2=80=99s tank.
"The tank=E2=80=99s carrying a
thousand gallons of water and stratego chemical, which is a fungicide
they spray pecans with," said Albany Fire Department Battalion Chief
Keith Ambrose.
The powerful chemical was leaking directly into a
storm drain so authorities acted quickly to prevent any contamination of
the water supply.
"The crews that first got here immediately started
dyking the storm drain to keep it out of the storm drain," said
Ambrose.
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A large
hydrochloric acid spill at a water treatment facility Monday that
supplies drinking water to the city of Fallon caused an interruption in
the plant's regular service.
At about 2 p.m. Monday, while a
shipment of hydrochloric acid was being delivered to the plant about 8-
to 10,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid- used in the treatment
plant-spilled out of the truck and into a containment area designed to
catch spills if they happen.
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NEAR SHONGALOO =E2=80=94 The state police hazardous
materials unit will focus in the coming days on determining what sparked
an explosion Wednesday at a natural gas compression station and the
release of any hazardous materials that critically injured one
man.
"It is an active investigation," Troop G spokesman
Cordell Williams said. "We are more concerned about why this happened,
where, what caused the leak; everything centered around the nature of
that leak; the release of any hazardous materials that caused the
critical injury. Our role will consist of determining why that happened
and any preventative measures. We don't want that to happen
again."
Meanwhile, the lone injured man remains in critical
condition inside the burn unit at LSU Hospital in Shreveport. Heath
Warford, a DCP employee from the Shongaloo area, was burned when the
explosion took place around 4 a.m. at the DCP, or Duke Energy, natural
gas compressor station, south of state Highway 157 near Walker Road at
Mulberry Road. Warford walked to a residence for assistance and was
flown from the scene.
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VENICE -- Authorities in Venice have removed about a
dozen RVs from one neighborhood after complaints about human waste being
dumped on the street.
HazMat crews cleaned up the area around Rose and
Third avenues Tuesday night after receiving complaints from Venice
residents and activists.
The LAPD then made the owners of
about 12 RVs move them out out of the area.
A local activist said as "Boston
Dawna" said no one was cited. She said the RVs were back in the same
spots by Wednesday morning.
A woman who allegedly uncapped a
sewage tank on an RV on Pacific Avenue near Fleet Street, letting waste
spill out as her partner drove the vehicle, was arrested over the
weekend.
Boston Dawna witnesses and reported the
incident.
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A 13-year-old boy has been
charged with heinous battery for apparently intentionally throwing a
chemical at two young children from a South Side porch Tuesday
afternoon.
A 10-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl suffered
burns when the chemical was thrown from a porch onto a sidewalk at 956
W. Garfield Blvd. at 2:02 p.m., Fire Media Affairs spokesman Quention
Curtis said.
Both were taken to University of Chicago Comer
Children's Hospital in good condition, he said.
It appeared
the children suffered burns to their head and chest, officials
said.
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24-year-old Maryland man was charged with set
off a chemical bomb Sunday in a residential neighborhood.
State fire
officials charged Maurice C. Chapman, of the first block of Kenneth
Drive in Rising Sun=E2=80=99s Bay Country Manor Estates Mobile Home
Park, with manufacturing a destructive device and disorderly conduct,
Deputy Chief State Fire Marshal Jason Mowbray said.
The incident
occurred about 11 a.m. when a loud explosion was reported by the
facility=E2=80=99s manager and neighbors.
An investigation determined that
Chapman used household chemical to make a homemade explosive device and
discharged it on his front porch, Mowbray said.
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FAIRHOPE,
Alabama -- Police and firefighters evacuated Fairhope=E2=80=99s Public
Works compound and closed a portion of Section Street for about two
hours this morning after city workers reported a strong "chemical smell"
at the city=E2=80=99s household garbage warehouse, said Sgt. Craig
Sawyer, police spokesman.
At about 9:30 a.m., workers at
the warehouse smelled noxious fumes while they were using bulldozers to
push household waste into the trailer of an 18-wheeler, said Dan
McCrory, Fairhope Volunteer Fire Department spokesman.
The workers
left the facility, and at 9:37 a.m. Fairhope firefighters were called to
the scene. Assistant Fire Chief Chris Ellis immediately ordered an
evacuation of the Public Works area, which includes several buildings
and warehouses, as well as the nearby animal shelter, The
Haven.
The team determined that, as
machines pushed the waste toward the truck trailer, a number of
chemicals had been accidentally combined in a single 3-by-5-foot area,
McCrory said.
The combination apparently created a chemical
reaction, he said. The team=E2=80=99s instruments detected at least four
chemicals:
Muratic acid, which in high
concentrations can be used to etch concrete
Calcium
chloride, a highly water-absorbent salt made of calcium and
chlorine
Chlorine dioxide, used as
household bleach, and
Calcium hydroxide, known
colloquially as "lime," which has a variety of uses including the
creation of mortar and plaster and the treatment of sewage.
-----------------------
GLADSTONE, Mo. - A 12-hour standoff ended overnight
in Gladstone, but the suspect did not give up willingly: police had to
use tear gas to get him out. Police had to break every window in the
house and use 20 cans of tear gas to get the suspect out.
Now the
homeowners have to hire a HAZMAT crew so they can simply breathe in
their home again.
"Because of all the powder from the gas that's on
the carpet, we're going to have to rip out the carpet," homeowner Denise
Petersen said. "We've got to have HAZMAT team come in and clean
everything, repaint everything, we've got to to fix the roof, there are
five holes in the roof."
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DALTON, WHITFIELD COUNTY (WRCB)
- A hazardous gas leak, shut down several streets in downtown Dalton
Tuesday.
Officials gave the all clear at 3:30 p.m., but not
before downtown business owners and employees were forced to spend most
of the day in a holding pattern.
The call first came in at 6:00
a.m.
As soon as emergency crews realized what they were
dealing with, they set up a perimeter in downtown Dalton. Every business
and street within a half mile radius of Reddy Ice was shut
down.
...
The gas in
question is called anhydrous ammonia. At high concentration levels
it can cause severe skin and breathing irritation, which is why
officials felt shutting down the downtown business district was
necessary.
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MILWAUKEE
(AP) =E2=80=95 Authorities called in the Fire Department's hazardous
materials team after workers removing items from a house in Milwaukee
spilled a small amount of mercury Tuesday.
Battalion Chief Spencer Vassel
says no one was injured by the mercury. He says the spill occurred
around 12:20 p.m. as workers were removing items from a house being
readied for an estate sale.
He says a glass container
holding mercury broke while being carried from the basement inside a
garbage bag. The mercury spilled out along a path that stretched up the
basement stairs and outside the house before workers noticed the
spill.
-----------------------
The students=E2=80=99 laboratory notebooks and the
TTU police and EH&S investigation reports, along with related
interview transcripts and summaries, collectively reveal a lack of
attention to safety at TTU at all levels=E2=80=94lab, department, and
university. The incident has prompted changes in TTU=E2=80=99s
laboratory safety program as well as new oversight of laboratories
funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which funded
Brown=E2=80=99s research through Northeastern University=E2=80=99s
Center of Excellence for Awareness & Localization of
Explosives-Related Threats (ALERT).
"This was a very
unfortunate and unnecessary accident that could have resulted in loss of
life very easily,=" says T. Taylor Eighmy, a civil engineer and
TTU=E2=80=99s vice president of research. "I think that the
graduate student in question has culpability here of carelessness in the
lab.=" And beyond that, at the department and institutional
level, "the culture around safety was just not as prevalent as
it should have been,=" Eighmy says.
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