The concerns expressed by parents in Randolph, Minn., over evacuating students from school likely were high on the agenda at the action review held last week to go over how the community handled the release of 100 to 200 gallons of anhydrous ammonia Dec. 8 (GM Dec. 13, p. 13) from a delivery operation at a local farm input business.
“During occurrences like this we’re going to get questions and concerns about the overall operations,” David Gisch, Dakota County emergency preparedness coordinator, told Green Markets. Gisch said he hadn’t heard personally from the parents, but reports were that a handful of parents sent e-mails to the school asking why students experienced potential chemical exposure during the process.
“You’re going to have a few upset parents who couldn’t get in touch with the students,” Gisch conceded, saying that the students probably could have been sheltered in place at the school, but that was the decision of the fire department. “It was fortunate that there were no fatalities. Unfortunate that we had 54 transported to hospital, but of those there were no major problems. We learned a valuable lesson and will incorporate these lessons into our planning for any future events.”
“The ammonia was actually coming in through the air intake in the school,” Randolph-Hampton Fire Chief Jim Heiman told the press. “They could smell it inside the school. We made the decision it was probably better to evacuate the school.”
At River Country Co-op, where the release occurred during delivery of 8,000 gallons of anhydrous, Manager Bob Rahman, who was dealing at the same time with a 10-inch snowstorm, explained the release this way: “We have two tanks; one was in repair and the other was intended for the load. There was a valve between the two tanks that was closed and was blocked out and the driver accidentally opened the valve and the ammonia came out the piping.” He estimated that between 100 and 200 gallons were released, but “we’ll probably never know how much it was exactly.”
Rahman denied telling the press that the business had insurance coverage that would pay the costs of the response and hospital expenses for the students. “I don’t know the ins and outs of the insurance if they are going to pay at all.”
Other press reports indicated that the state doesn’t conduct regular inspection of anhydrous ammonia tanks, but a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture said that wasn’t the case. “We are out inspecting these facilities every three to five years,” reported Mike Schommer. “The confusion is about routine inspection as opposed to regular inspections. We might conduct additional inspections as dictated by incidents or significant concerns.”