Whitten, Iowa — As much as 20,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia may have been released from three tanks at Mid-Iowa Co-op over four hours on Tuesday, March 6, as the result of what was believed to have been a flex connector failure in the piping system. There were no injuries, and emergency steps were taken to spray down the ammonia and contain the contaminated water. At one point there were as many as 50 fire department personnel and emergency responders on the scene, according to Grundy County Sheriff Rick Penning. “I would say that six different fire departments plus three emergency management agencies and the Northeast Iowa Response Group responded,” Penning reported. He said the problem was believed to have been caused by a hole that developed in the pipe located ahead of a valve, and that a lot of the product behind that point contributed to the release. Although there were no water bodies in the vicinity to be concerned about, co-op employees on hand at the time used plant equipment to build earthen and sand dikes to contain the water that was being used to spray down the ammonia. Penning said there were no homes to worry about since the facility is located in a rural part of the community. “The other positive factor,” Penning added, “was that there was a perfect wind blowing straight to the north where a few farms are located, even though we did have reports that the anhydrous could be detected two or three miles away.” One county road on the north side of the facility was closed during that time.
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