Federal air monitoring and cleanup oversight continued in north Toledo on Monday, October 26, three days after the last evacuation order from last week’s chemical release was lifted. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Ohio EPA have begun oversight of cleanup at the MC Tank Terminal site at 1266 Progress Avenue, according to the City of Toledo, while EPA crews keep collecting air data in the surrounding community.
The EPA’s Trace Atmospheric Gas Analyzer, known as TAGA, a mobile laboratory that takes real-time air samples as it moves through neighborhoods, began monitoring on the evening of Friday, October 23. The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department said initial raw data showed no detections of glycidyl methacrylate in the surrounding community. The city said that on Saturday, October 24, the lab detected an extremely low level of the chemical, below reporting and screening levels, and EPA continues to collect data at fixed locations and take samples for laboratory analysis.
The emergency began on Tuesday night, October 20, when a 911 call at about 9:30 p.m. alerted Toledo Fire and Rescue to a release from a tanker at the terminal. The EPA’s response record says the release involved glycidyl methacrylate from an approximately 5,500-gallon intermodal tank, and a reaction inside the compromised tank kept it venting for about two days. Toledo ordered everyone within one mile to evacuate that night over a threat of explosion, then added a shelter-in-place order within three miles early Wednesday.
Conditions improved steadily from there. The city lifted the shelter-in-place order and shrank the evacuation zone to a half-mile on Wednesday, October 21, then to a quarter-mile on Thursday, October 22, as air quality improved and the tank’s temperature fell. By 6 p.m. Thursday the tank had stopped releasing material. Toledo Fire and Rescue lifted the remaining evacuation at noon on Friday, October 23, and that evening turned the site over to its owners for cleanup under U.S. EPA oversight.
The release sent dozens of people to area hospitals. The city has said 57 people who reported symptoms possibly connected to the leak were treated by local hospitals, with most treated and discharged. The health department’s return guidance for residents covers ventilating homes, cleaning hard surfaces, discarding uncovered food and outdoor produce, washing possibly exposed clothing, and replacing pet food and outdoor water. Its chemical leak hotline is 419-779-7089, and residents with health questions can also call 419-213-4100.
Investigators are still working to pin down what went wrong. Ohio EPA has attributed the release to an error during the transfer of the material, and Toledo’s mayor told reporters a company employee introduced a temperature to the tank during the transfer, setting off the reaction. The EPA has said its enforcement personnel will work with the state to investigate.
For north Toledo families and businesses, the work ahead is cleanup at the Progress Avenue site under federal and state oversight, and continued public air data while that work goes on. The city has posted preliminary monitoring results on its incident page, noting the data has not finished quality review and may change, and the city and health department say their pages will be updated as new information becomes available.