No one hurt after nitric acid spill at Fond du Lac dairy plant

FOND DU LAC – No one was hurt after a nitric acid spill at Milk Specialties, 325 Tompkins St., Friday.

Fond du Lac Fire/Rescue responded to the facility at around 7:15 a.m. Friday for a fire alarm. When crews arrived, they noticed a yellow smoke plume coming from the shipping docks where semi-trucks were off-loading chemicals.

The department's Hazardous Materials Team was dispatched to the scene and the building was evacuated.

Initial investigation found a chemical truck was offloading nitric acid when the plume began, the department said in a news release.

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According to the department, the quick actions of the truck operator to activate the emergency equipment shut-off kept the incident from expanding outside the structure.

The initial cause of the incident appears to be a major failure in the hose from the highway shipping tanker to the building, which sprayed the acid onto 55-gallon drums of a surfactant and animal by-product and resulted in a violent reaction that created the plume, the department said.

The building was ventilated and the chemicals were neutralized.

Fond du Lac Fire/Rescue was on scene approximately five hours and was assisted by the Fond du Lac Police Department. An environmental company was called for further cleanup.

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Contact Brandon Reid at 920-686-2984 or breid@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @breidHTRNews.

This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Fond du Lac nitric acid spill at Milk Specialties gets HAZMAT response