One injured when tanker truck, dump truck collide on I-295 in Gardiner
Dec. 4—GARDINER — A collision Wednesday afternoon between a tanker truck and a dump truck on Interstate 295 in Gardiner injured one of the drivers, spilled almost 8,000 gallons of landfill leachate and brought traffic to a halt for several hours, officials said.
The crash occurred at about 1:30 p.m. when a tanker truck driven by Allen Hewett, 61, of Sidney failed to yield to a Maine Turnpike crew that had shut down one of the lanes for maintenance work, according to Shannon Moss, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Maine Turnpike workers were collecting cones and using a dump truck equipped with a crash-attenuating trailer to shield the workers from vehicles coming up from behind, Moss wrote in an announcement to the news media.
Wastewater being carried by the truck spilled onto the highway as a result of the crash, prompting the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to respond to the scene.
"The truck driven by Hewett rolled over and careened into the cable guardrail, spilling nearly all 8,000 gallons of its landfill leachate, aka 'dirty water,'" Moss wrote. "The Maine Turnpike truck was severely damaged and landed across both northbound highway lanes."
Landfill leachate is wastewater formed when rainwater filters through solid or buried waste in a landfill.
The driver of the dump truck sustained minor injuries and was taken to MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, according to Moss.
Hewett was cited for failing to maintain control of a motor vehicle and failing to yield to a highway maintenance vehicle.
Traffic on I-295 northbound was expected to be halted between exits 49 and 51 until about 5 p.m.
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