Anhydrous tanker crash causes death of driver

Sharon Township, Ohio-The death of the 75-year-old owner of Linden Propane Inc. while he was driving a tanker truck with a load of anhydrous ammonia July 5 was described by his son as just a vehicular accident. Investigators said the mishap had nothing to do with the local protests over locating a 27,000 gallon ammonia tank in the community. Last month about 275 people attended a meeting at the local elementary school to air their concerns. Ironically, Linden died at the scene where he crashed on his way to make a delivery to the farm where that particular tank is located. The mishap caught the cab of the truck on fire and released a small amount of anhydrous ammonia from the tank. Still, authorities had 20 homes in the surrounding area evacuated for nearly 12 hours. Linden’s oldest son, John, who was at the scene, told Green Markets that there were only 2,700 gallons in the tank, not the 6,000 gallons contained in press reports, which were attributed to the fire department. The younger Linden, who helped take care of the minor leak, said the tank had a capacity of 6,000 gallons. “It was only a minor vapor leak, but the smell goes a long way,” Linden remarked. “It could have turned into something worse if we had knocked a valve off. There was also a minor propane leak.” Sharon Township Fire Chief Robert Haas told the local press the official cause of death has not been determined, but that the driver appears to have died on impact and was ejected from the cab of the vehicle. He said the truck appeared to roll off the road into trees in the front yard of a house. Temperatures in the high 90s that day forced emergency responders to use water on the tank to keep it cool while it was decided how to right the truck and unload the product. John Linden said that no arrangements have been made as yet for services for his father. He said in the meantime business at Linden Propane will go on as usual. Linden Propane is a LaGrange-based supplier of propane and anhydrous ammonia, although ammonia is a minor part of the business during the summer months.