(The following article by R.J. Post appeared in the Grand Island Independent.)
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Grand Island firefighters were busy for up to two and a half hours on Friday cleaning up a corrosive liquid that leaked from a Union Pacific tanker car.
The liquid, ferric chloride, may have been leaking from as far away as North Platte, and as much as 8,000 gallons may have escaped before the leak was brought under control.
However, no injuries were reported from the incident.
U.P. spokesman Mark Davis said the train including the tanker car was traveling from North Platte to St. Paul, Minn.
“We don’t know when the leak started,” he said.
As of Friday afternoon, railroad officials also didn’t know how the leak occurred.
However, Davis said tankers carrying corrosive liquids such as ferric chloride are lined with rubber.
The rubber lining may have leaked, he said, allowing the corrosive liquid to eat holes in the metal tanker.
Ferric chloride, which Davis described as a “mild corrosive,” is used to etch electrical circuit boards and in the production of other chemicals, he said.
At one point, the tanker was reportedly leaking five gallons per minute, Davis said.
But as for how much escaped, he said Friday afternoon, “Even our guys don’t know yet.”
Capt. Terry Leslie of the Grand Island Fire Department said 8,000 gallons of liquid were missing from the 20,000-gallon tanker car.
However, Davis said that determination would have to wait until U.P. hazardous-materials teams concluded their work on the tanker at the U.P. yards east of Grand Island.
Teams were en route Friday afternoon, and he did not know how long it would take to complete the work.
U.P. officials were notified of the problem at 9:50 a.m. Friday after the crew of a westbound train noticed the leak on the eastbound train, Davis said.
Leslie said the Fire Department was dispatched to the Eddy Street underpass because of the problem at 10:09 a.m., but by the time they arrived, the train had already traveled farther east.
Fire officials soon learned that it had stopped at the U.P. yards.
Leslie said local emergency workers initially blocked the Eddy Street underpass and later blocked all the railroad crossings that vehicles travel over from Broadwell Avenue east to the U.P. yards.
Fluid from the leaking tanker was found along the way, he said.
Firefighters cleaned the crossings with a mixture of water and Class A foam, which Leslie said has properties similar to those of dishwashing liquid.
At one point, a call went out for fire departments to check crossings from North Platte to Grand Island, he said, and several volunteer fire departments responded. Some of the corrosive fluid was found at Wood River, he said.
The call to respond to the crossings was dropped later in the afternoon, he said.
Grand Island crossings were reopened to traffic as they were cleaned. Leslie said the last crossing was opened by about 12:30 p.m.
Leslie said he had a look at the leaking tanker, which had three holes in it about one-half to three-quarters of an inch in diameter about halfway up the car.
Davis said the tanker and some other cars onto which the liquid had leaked had been put aside at the U.P. yard until the cleanup could be completed.
“From what I understand, it’s not leaking,” he said Friday afternoon.
“From what our haz-mat guys say, it doesn’t seem to be that bad,” Davis said.
Ferric chloride can cause burns and is harmful if swallowed. Danger from exposure to the leaked chemical, however, was slight, railroad spokesman John Bromley told the Associated Press.
Leslie agreed that the situation could have been much worse if a more toxic material had been involved. Evacuation was not necessary in this case, but depending on what’s leaking from a train car, it could require evacuation up to half a mile, he said.
Leslie said a haz-mat situation such as this is atypical for the Grand Island Fire Department.
“Let’s hope it remains atypical,” he said.