Acid Spill on Antelope Valley Freeway Slows Traffic to Crawl

Morning rush hour traffic slowed to a crawl on the Antelope Valley Freeway in Newhall this morning after a spill of muriatic acid from a truck forced the closure of two southbound lanes, the California Highway Patrol reported.

Johnny Reese, 44, of Palmdale, the driver of the tractor-trailer truck hauling pool chemicals, was treated at the scene for inhalation of fumes from the spilled chemical but there were no other injuries, the CHP said.

Officer A. J. Torres said only about five gallons of the chemical spilled from the truck about 7:30 a.m. near the freeway’s San Fernando Road exit. CHP officers and a Los Angeles County Fire Department hazardous materials unit blocked off two of the four southbound lanes on the freeway and the spill was cleaned up in about two hours, Torres said.

With motorists on the normally heavy southbound commute crowded into the two open lanes, traffic slowed to a crawl and backed up more than a mile. The southbound on-ramp from San Fernando Road to the freeway was also closed during the cleanup.

The CHP said the spill apparently occurred when a pallet of muriatic acid containers shifted as the truck was heading southbound and several containers broke open.