In mid-July 2012, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announced a proposed consent agreement with the Town of Christiansburg (Montgomery County) over an April 2012 spill of chlorine into Crab Creek (a New River tributary) that killed an estimated 2,250 fish in an approximately one-half mile stream section. The chlorine was being used by the town’s wastewater-treatment plant to locate a leak within the treatment plant. The consent decree requires the Town to pay $13,560 as a civil charge and reimburse $1,100 to the DEQ and $295 to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and requires that the treatment plant to use a non-toxic dye in any future leak-detection work. The public comment period on the proposed consent decree runs July 26-August 15, 2012; a link to the proposed decree is available at the DEQ’s Web site at
http://www.deq.state.va.us/Programs/Enforcement/PublicNotices.aspx
(as of 7/25/12).
Additional source: Christiansburg fined after fish-killing chlorine leak, Roanoke Times, 7/14/12
• Haz Mat Experts petition Dow Chemical Company for safe rail tank cars transporting gas chlorine. Secondary containment is a necessary improvement that must be implemented.
See– PETITION C KIT for Haz Mat Expert comments.