Iowa incident raises tank lock questions

Cedar Rapids, Iowa-The weekend theft from an anhydrous ammonia tank and the resulting evacuation of the entire town of Olin caused some to wonder if the special lock devices equipping this tank and thousands of others in the state are doing the job. Thousands of Tanks-A-Lok are in use in all 99 Iowa counties, and their numbers are rapidly growing in other states and Canada. In Iowa, the first state to embrace the device, the locks were paid for by donations and grant money, and the recently-passed federal farm bill is reported to contain funding for additional installations throughout the country. Questions were raised immediately after the Olin incident on the Cedar Rapids TV news. Reporters quoted Jones County Sheriff Mark Denniston as saying “Co-op people told me they wish they knew who it was so they could show them how they’re getting around it (the security device). The lock will still be on the valve, but they’ll get the valve turned.” River Valley Co-op General Manager Tom Leiting confirmed for Green Markets that the lock was still in place after the theft attempt. He declined to speculate how the tank had been accessed by the late-hour intruders, who left the valve open and fled the scene. But that hasn’t changed River Valley Co-op’s opinion about continuing to use the locks. River Valley Safety Manager Matt Hull said it hasn’t changed his mind about Tanks-A-Loks. “I don’t see any change happening here in the near future,” Hull remarked. “They have been successful as a deterrent for our company.” Kim Swinford, U.S. manager for British-based Smith Flow Control, which has the exclusive rights to distribute Tanks-A-Lok in North America, insisted that there is no way that these or other thieves could remove the locks. “There’s no way they can get into the tank by tampering with the lock,” Swinford declared. “They would have had to access the tank in another way.” She said it was possible the lock was not properly installed or that thieves may have obtained a key in some way, but conceded she had no first-hand information from the Iowa location. Iowa was the “beginning” for Tanks-A-Lok in the U.S., with the manufacturers proclaiming on their Web site “Tanks-A-Lok Completes a State-wide Lockup in Iowa, Virtually Eliminating Meth Labs Throughout the State.” Swinford said there is even a state law requiring the locks on anhydrous tanks. “Other states haven’t been quite as proactive as yet,” she noted.