(The News Journal posted the following article by Terri Sanginiti on its website on March 16.)
WILMINGTON, Del. — Four chlorine-laden railroad cars that partially derailed at DuPont’s Edge Moor plant in Fox Point on Monday were safely put back on the tracks and unloaded early Wednesday, a company spokesman said.
No one was injured, and there was no risk to public health or safety.
But the potentially hazardous situation has prompted county officials to question at what point they should be notified in cases of a near-emergency.
DuPont Co. spokesman Tim Ireland said Wednesday that the plant contacted the 911 center Monday afternoon and reported “a chlorine car derailment here at Edge Moor.”
But county Public Safety Director Guy Sapp said he was not made aware of any incident at the plant until Tuesday morning.
Officials are now trying to determine what went wrong in the line of communication so it doesn’t happen again.
“I think we have a gray area that’s a bit ambiguous about emergency notification,” County Councilman John Cartier said. “If there had been a chemical leak, there would have been a clear-cut protocol. From [DuPont’s] perspective, in this case it wasn’t an immediate safety issue.”
Cartier, who represents that area, said he intends to coordinate a meeting between the plant and the county’s Office of Emergency Management to establish what steps should be taken when a potentially dangerous incident occurs that poses no immediate threat to the public.
“It’s all how they define what is a threat and when does it cross that threshold,” Cartier said. “I want to get clarity with them that whenever anything goes on there with chlorine — no matter how minor — I want to be informed.”
From DuPont’s perspective, the company followed standard procedure for contacting the county in an emergency or near-emergency, Ireland said.
“If one department didn’t talk to another department in the county, that’s not our fault,” he said.
Sapp said he will review the 911 calls this morning to try to gain a better understanding about what happened.
“We’re going to take steps to correct the internal process, so if we field a call through the 911 center that may have emergency management implications, we’ll send it to the coordinator for the Office of Emergency Management so he can do his own assessment,” Sapp said.