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Sulfuric acid spill leads to hazmat cleanup near San Miguel

March 27, 2021

Photo by Richard Bastian

By RICHARD BASTIAN

A punctured vineyard storage tank leaked sulfuric acid across a San Miguel roadway and into a storm drain leading to the Salinas River on Thursday afternoon, according to the San Luis Obispo County Department of Public Health.

A trailer towed by a farm tractor at the Locatelli Vineyards at 8585 Cross Canyons Road punctured a tank of sulfuric acid causing the toxic spill. While some of the acid leached into soil at the vineyard, excess acid pooled on Cross Canyons Road.

Contaminated soils placed in barrels. Photo by Richard Bastian

Additional acid also entered a storm drain that leads to the Salinas River.

Hazmat crew member cleaning the riverbed. Photo by Richard Bastian

Officials briefly closed Cross Canyons Road while a remediation team worked on the site. The release was contained and partially neutralized by the early Thursday afternoon, according to the county.

Hazmat crew member cleaning the riverbed. Photo by Richard Bastian

The hazardous waste remediation company was further absorbing and neutralizing the soil, road and storm drain on Friday evening.

It is not likely to cause a threat to public health, according to the county.


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Sounds bad but not really. Common amendment added to irrigation water to reduce pH and convert free lime in the soils to gypsum. Yes, a large spill is worrisome but the contaminated materials could be spread across the agricultural land and Mother Nature would work her magic during a rain event. Western soils 101, next time, we will refresh the use of PPE. Bring your gloves and goggles.


7

You sound like a really nice lobbyist for a billionaires weekend pig pen. How much did this idiotic mess cost, and what has industrial wine done to benefit our home aside from Pilage and ruin local small farms water table and desecrate the land while paying immigrants peanuts to do dirty work? Have you ever been to a water resource meeting for slo county and seen Well statistics?


0

Sulfuric acid, great compound to Disintegrate organic compounds, IE, life, and biology……what do mobsters and cartels do to dispose of corpses. Ban this crap ASAP. A winery isn’t a water treatment plant, and this crap was stored willy nilly as some dip#### ran a tractor into it, and dumped this crap into a steelhead run and a water table. Oh yeah, rain washes it away. Look at the Great Barrier Reef, it’s dead, from Run Off of farms, not magic, not global warming, crap like this killed something that survived 1 million years from frigging asteroid strikes and volcano’s, in 50 Years, DEAD. Stop lobbying. PPE, LOL.


-12

Sulfuric acid isn’t toxic. It is caustic but is easily neutralized.


When your tear ducts go bonkers when cutting onions…that is sulfuric acid in your eye. No need for melodrama over this.


3