Hazardous substances took careful cleanup
Gilroy – Highway 152 was re-opened at 1:15pm Friday, more than 30 hours after a chemical spill shut down the road.
Thursday morning, a tractor-trailer side-swiped another rig carrying sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide and potassium nitrate. Haz-Mat crews spent more than 13 hours cleaning the site, from about 6pm Thursday to 7am Friday, said Officer Chris Armstrong, California Highway Patrol.
“The cleanup was rather extensive, due to the chemicals in the truck,” Armstrong said. “There was potential for combustion or fire.”
Potassium nitrate, which can cause skin and eye irritation if inhaled and convulsions if ingested, was the main chemical spilled, he said. But if the chemical mixed with others carried in the truck – including hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid – the results could be ugly.
At 7am Friday, the chemicals were cleaned up, but officers needed to photograph and map out the scene for later investigation before the battered tractor-trailers could be towed, and the debris cleared.
The driver who caused the crash, Dondwell Gooding, 45, from Taft, has not been cited, said Armstrong. Nor was Karl Holehouse, 45, of West Covina, who was driving the rig carrying the chemicals. The CHP will investigate to determine if any charges should be considered.
The curving two-lane highway is prone to crashes: this year, there have been 26 accidents on Highway 152 between Bloomfield Avenue and Lover’s Lane, the same stretch where Gooding crashed Thursday.
“Trucks are all over the road out there,” said John Fattalini, a lifelong resident of Los Banos. He said he’d driven semis on the road for 35 years. “They hit 60 miles per hour, and you can see the load leaning, as they go around the turn.”
Accidents have increased on the road since 2000, when there were 16 accidents, but dropped since their peak in 2004, when 34 accidents occurred.
