Tanker Truck Collapses, Spills Ethanol in Kenilworth, NJ

- by Katie Lan­nan, Novem­ber 19, 2014,  NJ.com

Fire­fight­ers called to the scene of what was orig­i­nal­ly described to them as a “small spill” Wednes­day after­noon instead found 500 gal­lons of ethanol that had leaked out of a col­lapsed tanker truck.

The truck, car­ry­ing 7,000 gal­lons of ethanol, split as it was offload­ing its con­tents at a North Michi­gan Avenue busi­ness, said bor­ough Fire Chief Lou Giordino.

“The tank itself just col­lapsed and broke open,” he said.

Fire­fight­ers called the coun­ty haz­ardous mate­ri­als team and the New Jer­sey Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion’s emer­gency response team to the scene. Fire depart­ments from near­by com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing Union Town­ship and Eliz­a­beth, also assist­ed with the cleanup.

Crews from a pri­vate spill cleanup con­trac­tor arrived short­ly before 3 p.m.

“We’ve got a lot of resources here,” Giordi­no said.

The response includ­ed cov­er­ing the spill with a blan­ket of foam to pre­vent explo­sions or oth­er haz­ards, he said.

The spill was con­tained to the load­ing dock and did not extend beyond that area, Giordi­no said.

At the time of the spill, the truck was on the prop­er­ty of the chem­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­ny Syn­ray Cor­po­ra­tion at 209 North Michi­gan Avenue.