Des Moines-More than 300 students were evacuated from a Des Moines area middle school early Sept. 19 after a TruGreen truck overturned and dumped between 400 and 500 gallons of lawn chemicals outside their classrooms. School officials said there was never any danger to the students, but decided nonetheless to load them on buses and take them to a nearby high school. “We brought them all back in a little over an hour, fed them lunch and everyone was okay,” reported Joyce Thomsen, the district’s business manager. Thomsen said that the TruGreen minivan reportedly lost its brakes and the driver tried to avoid hitting cars on the road by heading for a ditch, running into a light pole and ending up on its side on school property, where the tank ruptured. She said TruGreen reported that it was a mixture of liquid herbicides and fertilizer that flowed along a sidewalk and driveway to the side of the school building. Emergency responders assured everyone that there was no danger from the spill. TruGreen is expected to complete the cleanup and check on possible groundwater contamination under the supervision of natural resource inspectors.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain