AURELIA, Iowa --
Aurelia residents who were forced to evacuate their homes Monday morning after a large anhydrous ammonia leak, were able to return that evening.
The Aurelia Police Department said the evacuation order was lifted at 5:30 p.m. Monday.
Shortly after 10 a.m., a tank valve broke at the First Cooperative Association. For safety reasons, all residences and businesses east of Main Street and north of Highway 7 were evacuated. The evacuation area was later expanded to the west, as the wind changed direction.
Emergency crews, including a HAZMAT team from Sioux City, responded to the leak.
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AURELIA, Iowa (KTIV) –
Five-hundred people from the in the town of Aurelia were evacuated early Monday morning due to an ammonia leak.
Residents in the area were urged to leave the town right away, with emergency officials surveying the town and the neighborhoods making sure everyone was warned.
Officials say the bin leaking at First Cooperative Association could hold up to 30,000 gallons of ammonia.
The streets in the town run dry with no activity.
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Aurelia Location Remains the Hub of Activity
"Good enough" is not good enough for the team at First Cooperative Association's Aurelia location, which provides superior agronomy, grain, and energy solutions for customers throughout the area.
"We know efficiency is important, and this year's challenging spring proved it more than ever," said Cory Weiler, a Remsen native who became Aurelia's location manager in February 2013.
Aurelia's 13 full-time employees, including assistant manager Seth Elder, work hard to get the job done right by providing:
- Fertilizer and agronomy expertise. Aurelia's premier dry fertilizer plant supplies urea, DAP, potash, and micro-nutrients to farmers near Aurelia, Linn Grove, Holstein, Cherokee, Webb, and beyond. The plant which is managed by Kevin Dessel, also contains a storage area for liquid chemical storage, so these liquid products can be impregnated into the dry fertilizer. Thanks to a computerized batching system and two mixers, a tractor-trailer can be loaded with blended fertilizer in a little as eight minutes. With a storage capacity of 2,700 tons, the plant can hold the equivalent of 270 rail cars of fertilizer. "We can unload an entire train car in 15 minutes," noted Weiler, who has worked in the cooperative system more than 18 years and joined FCA in 2011 as the Larrabee location manager.
Aurelia Dry Fertilizer Plant
In 2012, FCA installed two new 30,000-gallon anhydrous ammonia tanks at the 1-million-gallon liquid nitrogen plant located next to the dry fertilizer complex. FCA's Aurelia and Alta locations rely on these supplies, said Weiler, who works with Joe Brady, agronomist; and Kendra Wall, agronomy department/business office staff at Aurelia.
Anhydrous ammonia tanks at Aurelia's Liquid Nitrogen Plant
- Grain management. Aurelia boasts approximately 4 million bushels of grain storage, including additional outside storage capacity. The location can hold 2.6 million bushels of corn and 1.3 million bushels of soybeans, says Weiler, who noted that Aurelia also has a 50-car rail load-out facility. Two years ago, FCA added a 500,000-bushel steel bin, along with a 7,000-bushel-per-hour grain dryer. "The new dryer increased out capacity to 10,000-bushel-per-hour between our two dryers," said Weiler, who noted that Les Moland, Kevin VanRoekel, and Jeff Hoban handle grain operations. "This way we can keep things moving efficiently, especially during harvest."
- Energy products and services. The Aurelia location offers a number of energy products, including gasoline, diesel, and liquid propane (LP). With approximately 300,000 gallons of fuel storage, the location also includes a diking system to contain any spills. Two LP specialists, Dave Pierce and Jim Meier, are based in Aurelia but serve FCA's entire trade territory. FCA also offers a cardtrol station in Aurelia, complete with ethanol, E85, blender pumps, and diesel. The pumps accept major credit cards and FCA cards, noted Allison Diischer, energy department/business office staff.