Emergency personnel learn safe handling of ethanol

COLUMBUS - If area first-responders find themselves at the scene of an accidental ethanol spill from a rail or semi-trailer tanker that has been punctured, they want to be prepared to deal with the problem.

That's why dozens of first-responders converged on a downtown public parking lot on 12th Street today to participate in training about the safe and secure transportation of ethanol.

More than 50 area first-responders had preregistered for today's Columbus stop on the Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response (TRANSCAER) tour, said Tim Hofbauer, director of Platte County Emergency Management.

Walk-in participants have doubled the first-responders attending the training sessions at other tour stops, Hofbauer said.

Millions of gallons of ethanol are shipped by rail and semi-trailer tankers annually from Archer Daniel Midlands' plant in Columbus. The plant has an annual production capacity of 100 million gallons.

ADM corporate officials declined to release figures on the volume or method of ethanol shipments on a daily, monthly or annual basis from the Columbus plant.

“For security and trade reasons, we don't discuss shipping logistics or volumes,'' said David Weintraub, ADM's director of external communications, in an E-mail response to a request for shipping information.

Weintraub said the company was glad to hear that local authorities are attentive to the changes that come with expanding industrial presence.

Today's training sessions for first-responders are being held at the Union Pacific Railroad tracks at 12th Street and 28th Avenue. The daylong session includes classroom training, as well as hands-on tank car and semi-trailer tanker repairs.

Two training sessions are slated for 1-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. at the 12th Street location.

The training program is a voluntary national outreach effort focused on helping communities to prepare an effective response for a transportation-related hazardous materials incident.

First-responders will be learning how railcars and semi tankers are constructed, where valves are located and how to plug leaks of the fuel additive, Hofbauer said.

The tours have traditionally focused on the transportation of all hazardous materials, however, this tour is concentrating on ethanol shipments, said Lou Wagner, U.P.'s general director-chemical transportation.

Wagner said the purpose of the training tour is to encourage partnerships between citizens and industry to develop an awareness of transportation emergency preparedness; to help emergency planning groups identify hazardous materials moving through the community; to provide guidance for local officials to develop and evaluate the community emergency response plan, and assist with training and testing for emergency preparedness.

“The tour is an opportunity for our employees and our chemical customers to share the latest response and tank car repair techniques with local emergency responders to help prepare them in the unlikely event they would have to respond to an transportation incident involving ethanol,” Wagner said.

“With ethanol plants being built across the Midwest at such a fast pace, educating our customers and those that load ethanol into the tank cars about proper loading techniques and tank car securement can help prevent non-accident ethanol leaks as well.”

The training program has included tour stops in McCook, Hastings, Lincoln, Omaha and North Platte throughout this month.