Acid Spill Forces Evacuation, Road Closure in East Rockhill: Officials: Accident Unlikely to Be Serious Threat.
By Patrick Lester, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
May 25–At least a half-dozen homes on Ridge Road in East Rockhill Township were evacuated Thursday after a truck crashed into a utility pole and dumped a pool cleaner containing hydrochloric acid onto the road, officials said.
No injuries were reported, but residents in the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Ridge Road were asked to leave their homes as a precaution as haz-mat teams cleaned up the mess, fire officials said.
Several 5-gallon containers of the acid, which was being used by a pool company to clean stains off pools, fell from the company’s truck in the crash, said John Dougherty, Bucks County’s emergency services director.
Officials weren’t sure how many of the containers leaked onto the road, but the chemical did not appear to pose a serious health threat, they said.
Gregory Bruno of Pottstown was driving a flatbed truck with several buckets of the pool cleaner north on Ridge Road, said Sgt. Patrick Karcher of the Pennridge Regional Police Department. About 1:40 p.m., Bruno thought he saw a deer entering the road and swerved to avoid it, driving the truck into a ditch and hitting a utility pole, Karcher said.
He said Bruno works for Buckmans Inc. of Pottstown and was delivering the chemical to Sylvan Pools in Doylestown. Buckmans cleaned up what it could from the spill and called in a different company to dig up the contaminated soil for a more thorough cleaning, Karcher said.
Steve Reutlinger, a lieutenant with the Perkasie Fire Co., said residents were evacuated because hydrochloric acid poses an “inhalation hazard.”
Ridge Road between Route 313 and Schwenk Mill Road was expected to be closed for much of the night while a cleanup crew removed the chemical. Officials were starting to allow residents to return to their homes Thursday evening.
Reutlinger said a crew also was called in to replace the damaged utility pole.
Reutlinger said the truck went off the road and struck the pole about 1:50 p.m. He referred questions about the crash investigation to Pennridge Regional police, who could not be reached for comment.
There was no information available about the company hauling the chemicals.
The state Department of Environmental Protection, the state Department of Transportation and a Bucks County haz-mat team monitored the cleanup throughout the afternoon and evening.
patrick.lester@mcall.com
215-529-2612
Reporters Scott Kraus and Dalondo Moultrie contributed to this story.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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