News Release 572

DEPARTMENT PROVIDING TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
TO COOKING GREASE SPILL

St. Clair County Tanker Truck Accident Results in
Used Grease Release

Volume 35-572

Contact: Larry Archer

(For immediate release)

573-751-3807

JEFFERSON CITY, MO, DEC. 5, 2007 – Missouri Department of Natural Resources emergency staff responded this morning to a tanker truck accident in St. Clair County that resulted in the release of an estimated 1,000 gallons of used cooking grease.

The department’s Environmental Emergency Response section was contacted at 8 a.m. by the Missouri Department of Health, which reported the accident at Highway 54 and Highway 13 in St. Clair County. Reports from the scene of the accident indicated that trenches dug by local firefighters had contained the lost cooking grease.

A state on-scene coordinator from the Environmental Emergency Response section was dispatched to the scene from the department’s Southwest Regional Office in Springfield to provide oversight and technical assistance to the cleanup. The truck’s owner, Hahn and Phillips Grease Company, Marshall, Mo., has hired a Kansas City cleanup contractor with a vacuum truck to collect the grease and a contractor from Nevada, Mo., to excavate soil affected by the spill.

The truck was hauling approximately 6,200 gallons of used cooking grease at the time of the accident.

The Environmental Emergency Response section is called to the scene of more than 300 emergencies each year, including fires, traffic accidents, leaking storage tanks and other incidents that could have a negative environmental impact. The department’s 24-hour spill line receives more than 1,600 incident reports annually.

To report an environmental emergency, including fuel spills, please contact the spill line at 573-634-2436. For more information contact the Missouri Department of Natural Resources at 800-361-4827 or 573-751-3443, or visit the department's Web page at www.dnr.mo.gov.

For news releases on the Web, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/newsrel. For a complete listing of the department's upcoming meetings, hearings and events, visit the department's online calendar at www.dnr.mo.gov/calendar/search.do.

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