Staff photo / J.T.
Whitehouse
Joint fire Chief Don Hutchison shows the dam material the department uses when responding to spills and leaks.

CANFIELD — Cardinal Joint Fire District Chief Don Hutchison said the department followed protocol in a July 11 chemical spill.

City council members on Wednesday heard from resident Brad Kinkade regarding a chemical leak at MSC, a metal coating plant on West Main Street. At the meeting, council members claimed they were just learning of the incident.

Council members Mark Graham, Christine Oliver, Bruce Neff and Chuck Tieche all said they were just learning about it and were somewhat upset about not being notified when the spill happened. Oliver, who is council president and also sits on the CJFD fire board, said she was going to “express her dismay at the next fire board meeting.”

Hutchison heard about the city meeting and wanted to set the record straight on that call. The call came in at 1:50 p.m. on July 11 regarding a chemical spill at 100 Cardinal Drive (Canfield High School) at the bike trail. The leak was for sodium hydroxide.

“I was on vacation at the time, but Capt. Troy Kolar and Deputy Chief Matt Rarick responded,” Hutchison said. “They arrived on scene and immediately notified HAZMAT, the Ohio EPA, Mill Creek MetroParks (because it happened next to the bike trail), the Canfield police chief and the city manager.”

HAZMAT responded and put down dams and the Canfield Public Works Department crew came out as well. When the Ohio EPA representative showed up, they took charge of the incident. In the incident report, Rarick noted the company brought in a cleanup crew from Pennsylvania. They dug three holding tanks (holes) along the bike trail and placed a temporary dam at the high school soccer field.

Rarick’s report stated the cleanup crew returned the next day with a vac truck to pump out the holding tanks and brought in a frac tank to store the material. Since that day, the Ohio EPA has taken charge of the situation and is monitoring it.

Hutchison said, “As far as we are concerned, our guys followed protocol and contacted who they were supposed to. We handle about 10 of these calls each year and always follow protocol.”

He said later in July, his department responded to a dump truck hydraulic leak and used the same protocol for that one as well.

“I will be giving a full report (on the incident) at the CJFD board meeting on Oct. 28,” Hutchison said.