Last week, residents in Zaleski — an area near Hocking Hills — were told to evacuate their homes. A tank at a nearby factory was leaking, releasing an orange plume of nitric oxide into the sky.
It’s the latest — albeit least serious — chemical leak in Ohio: in September, a train car leaked styrene in a railyard west of Cincinnati, and two years ago, there was a train derailment in East Palestine that resulted in the controlled release of toxic chemicals there.
A federal agency has opened an investigation into what caused that leak at the Austin Powder Plant on Wednesday. Some operations there resumed on Monday.
Dani Kington and Eric Boll have been covering the story for the Athens Independent. They joined the Ohio Newsroom to discuss what they’ve learned.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
On the cause of the leak
BOLL: “What we've been told via a press release from Austin Powder, which is the company whose tank was leaking, was that something on the tank was not acting correctly and the tank was getting too hot, causing the nitric acid that was in the tank to break down.”
KINGTON: “And when the nitric acid in the tank broke down, it converted into nitrogen oxide gas, which the company says was vented into the atmosphere according to the company's built-in safety systems. Nitric oxide is substantially less lethal than nitric acid, which is what was intended to be stored in those tanks.”
On the Austin Powder Plant
BOLL: “The Austin Powder Factory is an explosives manufacturer, so they make TNT, dynamite, the stuff that you'll see used in quarrying, mining, occasionally construction, demolition, that kind of thing. They have had incidents there in the past. In 2009, there was an explosion that occurred at their facility while workers were there. They had to life-flight [a form of critical care medical transport] three workers up to Columbus, and one of them passed away from their injuries a month or two later.”
KINGTON: “The company has also faced numerous other violations over the years, so this is definitely something that's part of a pattern with this company. So that's been something that we've been looking at, too.”
On the company’s response to the leak
BOLL: “The CEO sent a letter out to the people in the village of Zaleski reassuring them, [saying] ‘Hey, we are going to do our best to make this right.’ They also shared in their press release that they're going to take a few steps: They're going to conduct a full internal investigation. They're going to implement any necessary or procedural changes to stop it from happening again. They're reviewing how nitric acid is stored across all their company sites. And lastly, they are giving paid time off to affected employees and reimbursing employees and community members for expenses related to the incident.”
KINGTON: “Importantly, the company said that air monitoring has been occurring at the plant, which has shown levels of the nitric oxide that are non-hazardous to human health. We've requested any testing results from the Ohio EPA, but the message from the EPA was, very quickly that day, that things were safe for residents to return to their homes. We are looking to get more information on the exact testing that was done, but that's what they've said.”
On health and environmental concerns
KINGTON: “In all the information that we've received, it's been repeatedly stated that there have not been any reported injuries or hospitalizations as a direct result of the incident.”
BOLL: “A lot of farmers have discussed what they should be doing with livestock, and the guidance they've received has been to monitor them closely. If they start behaving strangely or doing anything outside the norm, call the vet and try and get them in.”
On the pattern of chemical leaks in Ohio
KINGTON: “ The incident in East Palestine has prompted a lot of scrutiny, specifically with rail. I think it remains to be seen whether the Ohio EPA will respond to this incident looking at the broader picture.”
BOLL: “It's also worth noting that the local emergency management agency had plans if there were to be a chemical leak. They mentioned during one of their press conferences that they have trained with Austin Powder before, so there seems to be a plan in place on the ground level of responding.”
