NEW MARTINSVILLE, W.Va. — The tank car that leaked approximately 17,000 gallons of chlorine on Aug. 27 at the Axiall Plant loading facility in New Martinsville had undergone a five-year interior inspection at a Pennsylvania facility along with repair work just a few months earlier, a preliminary report on the chemical leak from the National Transportation Safety Board said.
The report, released Monday, said tank car 1702 had been at Rescar Companies tank car repair facility in Dubois, Pa., from January to June for interior cleaning, thickness testing, weld buildup and other work. The jobs were necessary after inspectors found “numerous corrosion pits in the bottom section of the tank shell” after the tanker car arrived, the NTSB report said.
The tank car was returned to Axiall for its first postrepair loading in June.
MORE read preliminary report here
After the August leak that sent liquefied compressed chlorine, which formed a large vapor cloud along the Ohio River valley, NTSB investigators found a 46-inch long “circumferentially-oriented crack” on the bottom of the car.
Investigators also found buckling of the tank shell and several areas where the tank had been previously repaired where the shell measured below the minimum allowed thickness, according to the preliminary report.
The entire 90-ton load of chlorine leaked from the tank during the 2.5 hour Aug. 27 incident. The NTSB’s investigation, which has been on scene in New Martinsville and at Rescar in Pennsylvania, will continue at NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The tank car was constructed in 1981. Similar cars with the same type of underframe have had a history of cracking problems, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
Eight workers, five Axiall employers and three contractor workers, were treated for exposure injuries and released following the chlorine leak. Two people were hospitalized.