Acid Leak Contained at Stanford Linear Accelerator: FIVE PEOPLE EVACUATED FROM NEARBY BUILDING; NO INJURIES
By Leslie Griffy, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Feb. 6–It took Palo Alto firefighters almost five hours to contain a sulfuric acid leak at Stanford’s Linear Accelerator Center this morning.
No one was injured in the spill and, because the acid mixed with water from a cooling tank, its acidity was lowered to about the same as vinegar or tomato juice, with a pH of 4.
“By the time it got out of the tank,” said Palo Alto fire spokeswoman Catherine Cabriles, “it wasn’t very strong.”
Crews soaked the leak, about 10 to 15 gallons of acid and water, with an absorbant material and handed the problem back to the accelerator’s management who will contract with a private company to have the spill removed, Cabriles said.
But, according to Cabriles, when hazardous materials crews arrived the situation looked much worse.
The secondary storage tank that leaked is near a tank of sodium hydrochloride, Cabriles said. Any mixing of the two would have posed additional dangers for hazardous materials teams.
Looking over the situation around 2 a.m., firefighters decided to play it safe. They called in the hazardous materials team from Mountain View to help and suited up, Cabriles said.
“We wanted to go in very slowly,” Cabriles said.
Crews weren’t safely suited up to investigate the leak until around 5:30 a.m., three and a half hours after they first arrived, according to Cabriles. Once they discovered the acid had been sufficiently diluted by cooling water, cleanup moved much more quickly, she added.
Five people were evacuated from a building that is part of the accelerator’s complex.
The secondary storage tank that leaked is empty and has been temporarily taken out of use.
Contact Leslie Griffy at lgriffy@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5945.
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Copyright (c) 2007, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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