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Train derails near Mountain Home
Emergency crews responded to a train derailment off Highway 30 near Mountain Home on Thursday morning.
Two tanker cars were apparently transporting an unknown type of liquid fertilizer when the accident happened on a side rail track.
Based on witness reports, the accident took place just before 8 a.m. but was not reported to local emergency dispatch until over an hour later.
After receiving the call, the Mountain Home Rural and City Fire Department crews were on scene within minutes to determine if there were any hazardous materials on the train that could pose a risk to human health or the environment.
Union Pacific employees informed responders that the fertilizer was non-hazardous but were not immediately able to identify the contents of the cars.
Incident Commander Bud Corbus said,"Initially, they [Union Pacific] didn't know exactly what they were carrying and so until we knew, we had to treat it as a potentially serious incident."
Within 30 minutes, a Mobile Command Center had been set up and the Region 4 Haz-Mat unit from Boise had been dispatched to the accident scene.
Both of the tanker cars had flipped over and were positioned on an embankment, leaking fluid out of openings on top of the cars.
By midday, a conference call had been set up with the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security, Union Pacific Railroad, the Environmental Protection Agency, and responders at the crash site to determine the specific type of fertilizer being transported and to discuss mitigation of the incident.
The product was identified as urea ammonium nitrate 18 percent solution, known commonly as urea 50 percent solution.
The agricultural grade fertilizer, manufactured by J.R. Simplot Company, is considered non-hazardous to humans in small quantities.
Ingestion of large amounts of the fertilizer may cause systemic ammonia poisoning and nitrate poisoning, according to information found on a Material Safety Data Sheet about the product.
In its liquid form, the fertilizer is described as non-flammable but if allowed to dry it has the potential to be explosive.
The amount of fertilizer that leaked was not determined to be in significant enough quantities to warrant special containment measures.
A statement from Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said that the train cars carrying the fertilizer serve the local agricultural industry between Nampa and Gooding.
Davis described the accident as occurring at about 8:30 a.m. with no injuries reported as a result of the derailment. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.