(The following story by Jesse Corona of KVBC-TV appeared at MSNBC.com on August 31.)
LAS VEGAS — Lucky. That’s what hazmat officials are calling Las Vegas. On Wednesday, a runaway tanker full of liquid chlorine escaped a railyard south of the city and raced through Las Vegas.
Union Pacific engineers were finally able to get the tanker under control in North Las Vegas.
You’ve heard of chlorine being used to clean your pool, but you might not know that chlorine gas was used by the Germans in World War I to kill people in trench warfare. It destroys the lungs and victims end up suffocating to death.
When Mayor Oscar Goodman found out that a tanker full of 90 tons of liquid chlorine raced through the heart of the city out of control, he was not pleased. He says he plans on amending the city ordinance that deals with transporting nuclear waste to cover chlorine.
“Without notifying the authorities that it’s coming through, I think they should not be permitted to come through,” Goodman said. “I think they should have to notify the authorities. They don’t have to have an article in the paper, “Chlorine Coming Today.” That’s not what I’m asking. But to tell to the responsible people that there’s going to be a very dangerous substance going through the community; I believe it’s their obligation.”
It’s more economical to transport chlorine gas by lowering the temperature and turning it into liquid chlorine. Wednesday’s tanker was full of 90-tons of liquid chlorine, which hazmat officials say would fill about 250 railway tankers full of chlorine gas. It could have been a disaster if that tanker had collided with something and ruptured during its trip through the city.
The last chlorine spill we had in valley was in 1991. 40 to 70 tons of chlorine gas escaped from the Pioneer Chlor Alali plant in Henderson. About 200 people were treated at the hospital for respiratory problems and thousands of people were evacuated.