LUCASVILLE — Residents and workers in the southwest corner of Lucasville received a scare for a time Wednesday morning when anhydrous ammonia was leaked from a tank parked off of U.S. 23 north.

While for all intents and purposes the tanks were empty, they still carry a residue of approximately 50 gallons.

“There are four of those tankers parked out there, and someone opened the valves on one of them, allowing the ammonia to leak into the air,” Scioto County Sheriff’s Captain Robert Woodford said. “We believe someone opened the valves to attempt to steal the gas.”

Woodford said anhydrous ammonia is used in the creation of methamphetamine.

A pungent odor hung in the air in the area surrounding the site, and hazmat workers in safety clothing busied themselves handling the problem.

“The gas that leaked from the valves drifted upwards to an area west of U.S. 23, toward the ballfields and toward the Scioto River,” Woodford said.

The day began with people in that area experiencing physical discomfort.

“We got a call at somewhere around 7 a.m.,” Woodford said. “We called out the Emergency Management Agency Hazmat team, and they arrived around 8:15 (a.m.).”

Scioto County Emergency Management Agency Director Kim Carver later in the morning talked about the action taken by the hazmat team.

“We were requested to go out there and suit up and go in and see how much product was left in that tanker truck out there,” Carver said. “And to do some mitigation if we could to check those valves and shut them off if they were opened.”

Carver said Hazmat team members went in and closed off the valves.

“They have equipment that can detect through thermal-imaging how much product is in a tanker truck. And there was just a residual amount. It had been off-loaded,” Carver said. “But the residue was enough that when the valves were opened by what might be, as the Sheriff’s Office suspects, a drug theft for a meth lab, it was released into the air.”

Carver said with the weather, specifically the foggy, humid conditions, with very little wind, if there had been a larger amount of gas that had escaped into the air, it would have stayed low and laid in the river valley.

“Shortly after they closed the valves the smell did dissipate in that area,” Carver said. “It is very fortunate that we didn’t have anybody have any serious inhalation of that anhydrous ammonia.”

Woodford said a shelter-in-place was established around 8 a.m., and some residents were evacuated, and some businesses closed for a time.

“We evacuated people in about a 400-foot radius of the site for precautionary reasons,” Ohio State Highway Patrol Portsmouth Post Commander Lt. Mike Crispen said.

Woodford said, in addition to the Scioto County Sheriff’s Office, the EMA Hazmat team, OSHP, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, Valley Fire Department and the Rosemount Fire Department responded, and phone contact was made with the Ohio EMA coordinator, who was in Logan.

Woodford was asked how people react to the gas when they are exposed to it.

“If it’s bad enough to hurt you, you can’t stand it,” Woodford said.

Carver said the problems were kept to a minimum, with no injuries reported as a result of the leak.

“It could have been a bad situation, but we were fortunate,” Carver said. “We were really lucky this morning.”

At approximately 9:45 a.m., authorities lifted the shelter-in-place, and people began resuming normal activity.

“There will be a criminal investigation, and charges of theft or attempted theft,” Woodford said.

Anhydrous ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3, and is normally encountered as a gas with a characteristic pungent odor.

FRANK LEWIS may be reached at (740) 353-3101 Ext. 232