Spill Closes Trash Site In Valley Officials Find Hazardous Items But Haven’t Named A Cause
A suspected chemical spill at the Valley Transfer Station closed the trash-disposal site for half a day Monday and sent four employees to the hospital.
Authorities couldn’t pinpoint the cause, but found several hazardous-waste items, including a car battery and a container of the pesticide Diazinon, mixed in with regular garbage, said Mark Grover of the Spokane Valley Fire District.
Concentrated sulfuric acid from the battery may have leaked and reacted with the pesticide or garbage, the battalion chief said.
About noon, an employee moving garbage with a front-end loader noticed steam and a strong, rottenegg odor.
Employees closed the facility and decontaminated themselves in a temporary shower station.
The four employees stationed closest to the garbage - two men and two women - were treated for nausea and irritated throats at Valley Hospital and Medical Center.
Dressed in protective yellow suits, two members of the city of Spokane’s hazardous-materials team sifted through piles of garbage with shovels, collecting samples in large green buckets.
They found a variety of suspicious items, including several bottles of household cleaning agents, considered hazardous waste.
“These items can be disposed of for free,” Grover said.
Instead, people paid to have them weighed with their regular garbage.
The battery, pesticide and other hazardous items were taken to an incinerator and burned.
Workers returned to the North Sullivan Road facility later in the afternoon, but it remained closed to the public.
Valley residents who arrived with garbage were directed to the Waste to Energy Plant on Geiger Boulevard or the Colbert Transfer Station on Elk-Chattaroy Road.
The Sullivan Road facility is expected to reopen this morning.
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