12 Hospitalized After Truck Spills Chemical

Firefighting teams moved into this community’s business district Friday to begin cleaning up a spill of a highly toxic agricultural chemical that hospitalized a dozen people, authorities reported.

The leak last week of about 30 gallons of 2-4-Dinitrophenol, known under the trade name Dynosib, from a truck also forced the evacuation of a nearby trailer park, a restaurant and another business.

Idaho 24 was closed for several hours until firefighters contained the spill inside a burm of sand, Idaho State Police said.

The hospitalized people were released by this morning, including the driver of the truck, his wife and son. The county fire marshal and two deputy sheriffs also were among those complaining of dizziness and nausea, officials said.

The chemical, used to kill potato vines in preparation for harvest, is classified as an acutely hazardous material by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Rick Owens of the Idaho State Police said the driver, who worked for American Farmland Trucking of Cassville, Mo., was carrying 160 30-gallon drums and 72 five-gallon cans of Dynosib from its manufacturing site in Mississippi to an outlet in Walla Walla, Wash.

He noticed the spill in Rupert but failed to report it to authorities, instead attempting to wash the chemical from the trailer at a truck wash and then driving three miles south on Idaho 24 before parking outside a restaurant, Stoll said.

“There are certainly some blatant violations here,” Stoll said.