MARCH 20, 2015
GUELPH, ONTARIO
At about 8 a.m. Friday morning eight, 18-litre pails of
ethanol were unloaded at the transfer station of the Waste Resource Innovation
Centre on Dunlop Street in Guelph, Ontario.
It is believed that the party responsible was an industrial,
commercial, institutional (ICI) user of the product. The ethanol was inside
plastic containers that were then placed in garbage bags.
"That is not a substance that we are allowed to
receive, but it allegedly came in sealed black garbage bags," said Dean
Wyman, general manger of solid waste resources for the city. "Six of them
spilled open, and two of them remained intact. When it spilled open it caused
fumes."
Guelph Fire Services responded with a hazmat team because
the substance causing the fumes was unknown at the time, Wyman said. The
Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change was also alerted.
"We shut down the transfer station while it could be
cleaned up and we could investigate what the material was," he said.
"Once we did all of that, and it had been cleaned up and properly exposed
of, we were open for business."
The transfer station was closed for about six hours. One
employee was taken to hospital for observation due to the fumes.
"It didn't make it into the ground or the water,"
Wyman said, adding the spill was on concrete. "It was a spill and was
contained. It was all cleaned up and a hazardous material disposal company took
the material away.
"One lady that was in there went to the hospital as a
precaution, because she said she inhaled some of the odours," Wyman added.
"She was discharged in the afternoon with no issues."
Source: GuelphMercury.com