A Portland Fire Department hazmat team, along with several other agencies, were able to contain an industrial ammonia leak Tuesday.
Portland Fire Chief David Jackson says around 5 a.m., a worker called 911 after smelling ammonia outside a building that houses Paradigm Windows and a refrigerated warehouse operated by the parent company of Barber Foods.
“And we got it narrowed down fairly quick from doing some recon around the building that it was in the area of what they call an ammonia pump room, which is the building where the ammonia is stored in tanks, and there’s pumps that run the ammonia around the building for the refrigeration,” he says.
Jackson says, working with the building’s technical staff, hazmat techs were able to shut off valves and stop the leak and were picking up their equipment by early afternoon.
“The wind was in the right direction today where we didn’t have any effects downwind of any of the neighborhoods, so that worked out really well,” he says. “You just take your time and do it right and it’s safe — it worked well.”
The chief says that no one was hurt in the incident and that any remaining clean up would be done by an outside company.
