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Mill Workers Hospitalized After Gas Leak

Eighteen workers at Woodland Pulp Mill’s bleach plant in Baileyville were taken to Calais Regional Hospital Thursday morning after being exposed to chlorine oxide gas during a planned maintenance outage.

Chlorine oxide is a potent chemical used in water treatment and bleaching. Woodland Pulp spokesman Scott Beal says the chemical was accidentally released and quickly contained. Workers, he says, were taken to the hospital out of an abundance of caution and kept for observation.

“The report I had just a few minutes ago — the first one was released at 2:30 p.m. and 45 minutes later, I think three more were released. And everyone is stable and it appears, according to Calais Regional, that the exposure was minimal,” he says.

Beal says the company is grateful the situation wasn’t worse. He says both the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were contacted and have begun their investigation into the cause of the gas leak.