When a tanker carrying toxic chemicals overturned on a west-suburban expressway Thursday, thousands of morning commuters thought the worst of it was the rush-hour disruption.
But the eight-hour delay in clearing the accident raised questions about the ability of local authorities to deal with toxic chemical spills. It also underscored long-standing concerns about the enormous quantities of hazardous materials that are shipped daily through the Chicago area.
As the transportation hub of the nation, the Chicago area`s highways and rail lines carry millions of tons of toxic chemicals each day, said Ron Stephens, director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the cleanup of chemical spills.
There are no firm statistics on the number of such shipments in the region, but two figures can hint at how frequently motorists share the road with vehicles carrying dangerous materials.
– The Illinois State Police conduct about 30,000 inspections yearly of vehicles carrying hazardous materials, according to Scott Randall of the Illinois Department of Transportation.
– A 1986 survey by a Cook County agency found that trucks carrying toxic materials passed a monitoring point on the Dan Ryan Expressway at the rate of one a minute.
Although the majority of those shipments are transported safely, Illinois tallied 711 accidents in which hazardous materials were released in 1990, the last year for which figures are available. Illinois regularly ranks among the top four states having the most accidents involving toxic chemicals.
Of the accidents in 1990, 629 occurred on highways, 79 on railroads, and 3 involved airplanes.
In Thursday`s accident, a 5,000-gallon tanker truck that was eastbound on Interstate Highway 290 in Elmhurst rolled into a ditch near the York Road exit shortly after 3 a.m. When the tanker overturned, some of the toxic contents-a resin containing naphtha and two powerful industrial solvents-leaked onto the ground.
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One of the solvents, toluene, has been linked to birth defects; the other, benzene, causes cancer. The amount of the chemical that spilled was only 5 to 10 gallons, which was quickly diked to prevent it from escaping into storm sewers. Nonetheless, the eastbound lanes of the expressway were shut down for more than eight hours, snarling the morning rush hour.
State and local officials were delayed in cleaning up the toxic spill, they said, because they had trouble finding an available empty tanker into which the contents of the overturned truck could be transferred. Although authorities were on the scene within minutes of the accident, an empty tanker did not arrive on the scene until almost 7:30 a.m.
Officials, relying on Du Page County`s hazard response plan, combed through a list of trucking companies equipped to handle the chemical transfer, but had a hard time tracking one down.
”We tried to get ahold of several companies, and nobody would answer the phone,” said Jim Andriakos, hazardous materials officer with the Illinois State Police. ”Whether we had the wrong number-we had non-emergency numbers we were trying to use-it took several hours to get somebody to come out and handle this.”
A federal law passed in 1986 in the wake of a chemical-plant disaster in Bhopal, India, in which some 2,000 people were killed mandates that hazardous materials response plans be prepared by committees representing local emergency services, such as fire and police departments, and the state police, who respond to accidents on federal and state roads.
The plans detail various types of accidents, from minor leaks such as Thursday`s accident to major explosions of toxic chemicals, and how authorities are to respond to them.
Because the Bhopal tragedy involved a chemical plant and not a shipment of hazardous materials, the law focuses on fixed-site operations. But the emergency plans that have resulted generally include precautions in cases of transport accidents.
Other state and federal laws impose safety requirements on shippers, such as requiring placards on the outside of trucks that are carrying flammable or other hazardous substances. Also, trucks must carry data sheets that describe the type of chemicals in the cargo and methods for their safe handling.
Stephens, of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, said the overturned tanker had such a data sheet, which described the cargo and gave its flash point-the temperature at which it catches fire.
A 1990 federal law also imposes a registration fee on haulers of the most dangerous toxic materials. Revenue from the fees is to be used to aid in local emergency planning.
Emergency response plans tend to be more thorough in urban counties than in rural areas that are strapped for funds and equipment, Stephens said.
John Cameron, associate director of Illinois Public Action, which has called for stricter controls on hazardous-materials shipments, said Chicago-area response plans are generally adequate, but the delay Thursday in tracking down an empty tanker raises questions of whether the plan for Du Page County is current and whether officials would be able to deal with a more serious accident.
”It`s Russian roulette,” he said. ”Every time you pull the trigger, disaster isn`t going to happen, but you raise the odds of disaster next time.”
But Andriakos said, ”We constantly work on our list” of hazardous materials handlers. ”For some unknown reason, several companies are switching from one phone system to another,” he said, which contributed to the delay in locating a tanker.
Elmhurst Fire Chief John Fennell said that the difficulty in finding a hazardous-materials carrier stemmed from what he called ”consolidation” in the industry. Many companies are merging or going out of business.
Andriakos also defended the ability of officials to respond to more serious spills or explosions. ”We have contingency plans for everything,” he said.
The driver of the tanker, 44-year-old Roger Meyer of Schererville, Ind., suffered a head injury and was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.
Loyola spokesman Mike Maggio said Meyer was recovering from surgery and was in critical but stable condition.
Because officials were unable to talk to Meyer, they do not know what caused the accident. Calls to the truck company, V.C. Tank Lines of Schererville, were not returned Thursday.
The three eastbound lanes of the expressway were closed between Illinois Highway 83 and York Road until 11:19 a.m., Andriakos said.