Arcadia, Wisc.-An emergency crew expects warmer temperatures to help their efforts cleaning up nearly 7,000 gallons of 28 percent liquid nitrogen that leaked from a storage tank at Arcadia Cooperative Assn. here. According to state environmental and agriculture officials, the fertilizer flowed from a break in the tank and escaped through a crack in the concrete containment dike. “There’s three feet of frost on the ground and they can’t get a front loader to scoop it up,” spokeswoman Jane Larson reported. She said workers are resorting to putting down sand and scraping up what they can with a skid loader. But help is on the way, Larson added, with temperatures expected to get up into the 40s and 50s. The leak was discovered the morning of March 1 by an employee who heard a hissing sound while opening the doors to the indoor mix load pad. An Arcadia spokesman told Green Markets that an estimated 6,800 gallons escaped from the tank and spilled out onto the ground from the old concrete dike, which had a hole the size of a hose. Some 7,500 gallons was transferred from the tank while workers pumped up as much as they could from the puddles. He said the frost actually was keeping the liquid from soaking into the ground, lessening concerns about reaching into groundwater or a nearby creek. State investigators, however, plan to do follow-up soil tests to make sure all of the contamination is cleaned up. Arcadia said the fertilizer-soaked sand was being stockpiled and would eventually be land-spread. Arcadia Police and the Arcadia-Glencoe Fire Department also responded to the scene. Traffic was shut down in the area for a time, and students at Arcadia Elementary were told to stay indoors as a precaution.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain