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At Approximately 0700 CST on March 28, 2007 lightning struck the Helena Chemical Plant in Humboldt, TN causing the facility to catch on fire. The company is a manufacturer of pesticides. At this time there are evacuations of the industrial park and 6 residences in the immediate area for a total of 300-400 people. USES were hired by Helena to provide cleanup assistance and CTEH was hired to provide air monitoring support. At the time of the initial report, no air monitoring was being conducted in the vicinity of the scene. OSC Steve Spurlin and START were dispatched to the scene to provide oversight and air monitoring support.
Evacuations were in place until late in the evening of March 28, 2007, but lifted after air monitoring showed no detectable air quality concerns. The three evacuated industries in the vicinity of the fire were sampled as well and allowed to reopen last evening. However, there is one business that makes cardboard products that would like additional sampling prior to shipping their products to customers. CTEH will be handling this request. The PIO for the state of Tennessee asked EPA for some assistance with concerned citizens who wanted to know how exposure to pesticides might affect them. EPA coordinated this through the on-call ATSDR toxicologist who was able to work with the PIO.
As of early morning, March 29, 2007, the fire has been extinguished and all that remains are areas of pooled liquids (products). Some of the product from the warehouse mad its way into an unnamed creek, CTEH walked the creek and found that it dissipates rapidly as you go downstream. In reaction, the creek was diked up and downstream of the suspected influent point and the product is being pumped out.
USES is currently working through the rubble to pump out any pooled liquids into baker tanks for storage and future off-site disposal. Once this is done they will do some soil removal in the areas impacted from runoff. CTEH took water samples from the unnamed creek up and downstream of the suspected contaminant influent area and area awaiting those samples to come back from the lab.
The OSC, TDEC, and RP will continue to work together through the remainder of the removal phase.
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