Nevada, Mo.-As much as 2,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia were released without causing any injuries when a farmer lost control of two tanks he was towing the afternoon of Thursday, Dec. 30, according to the Nevada Fire Department. Firemen on the scene said both tanks overturned in the mishap, which ripped a hole in one of them when it hit the side of a bridge, causing traffic to be halted on both sides of the highway for two hours. Fire Lt. Kelly Wingert, one of the two rescuers on the scene, said the mishap occurred in an open field area with the nearest homes a quarter of a mile or more away, and therefore not requiring evacuation. Luckily there were gusty winds out of the south that helped to disperse the ammonia cloud. But Wingert said getting to the tank venting the ammonia through a ruptured seam was a different matter. “There was a split in the seam where it was welded and we couldn’t see the seam because it was venting pretty vigorously and bubbling up the paint, kind of like it found a hole and was shooting through it,” Wingert explained to Green Markets. On top of that, the fireman in their structural fire-fighting ensemble with breathing apparatus couldn’t close the opening because the plug-and-patch kit they had with them wasn’t big enough. The unidentified farmer was transporting the ammonia tanks from Farmers Ag and Grain Supply at nearby Deerfield, which sent a crew to transfer the ammonia into the second tank to another carrier.
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