At 10:28 am on January 2, 2005, the National Response Center (NRC #745957 and #745959) notified the EPA Region 6 Phone Duty Officer of a facility located in El Dorado Arkanas had numerous explosions and fires.
Teris is a hazardous waste incineration facility that operates rotary kilns for solid incineration and thermal oxidation for liquid incineration. Teris is a Program 1 RMP Facility which is subject to the RMP regulations.
EPA Region 6 OSC Chris Ruhl and EPA-START were dispatched to the scene to coordinate with the Arkansas State On-Scene Coordinator, local Fire Chief and Teris Representative. Richard McDuffie with Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and Dave Maxwell with Office of Emergency are coordinating with EPA. ASPECT performed air monitoring and collected aerial information within 24 hours. Arkansas CST was requested earlier to provide additional air monitoring but was called down by ADEQ when local ADEQ representative and fire chief said that the scene was under control. Numerous drums continue to explode containing magnessium. The El Dorado Fire Chief and local ADEQ representative response strategy is to allow the facility to burn its self out due to potential of water reactive material on-site.
The local fire department iniatially evacuated approximately 2600 people around the facility and closed numerous roads and highways around the facility. The roads were opened and evacuation order lifted at 1600 hours on 03 January 2005.
