[This story and photos by Bill Pickett.]
A small chlorine leak at a moth-balled water treatment facility along Illinois route one in Belgium forced traffic to be detoured off a segment of that highway for several hours Sunday. Assistant Westville Fire Chief Mark Ames explained what happened….
Audio Player{AUDIO: ‘’We were contacted by Westville Gas and Water that we had a potential leak coming from the water treatment facility of chlorine gas. Upon our arrival we were able to confirm that leak was real, and subsequently we had to initiate an evacuation. That evacuation runs between route one, Danville Street and Lyons Road and Center Street here in Belgium.’’}
{Two members of the Danville Fire Department’s Haz-Mat team head to check-out the situation.}
Westville Firefighters called in the Danville Fire Department’s Technical Hazardous Materials Team for assistance. Ames noted the building where the incident occurred is not used to treat Westville’s water supply…..
Audio Player{AUDIO: ‘’Westville purchases its water from Aqua, and this is a reserve system that used to be used to chlorinate the water. However Aqua does all of those services at this time. So this equipment is in service in a standby capacity. And at this time we do not know what failure has happened.}
Emergency personnel closed route one from Lyon’s Road to Kelly Avenue in Belgium. It forced motorists to take a short detour – including those heading south to Westville’s Labor Day Weekend celebration.
At 10:00 p.m. authorities had re-opened Illinois route one and said it was safe for residents to return to their homes. Westville Police and Vermilion County Sheriff’s Police assisted on the scene with traffic control as well as the evacuations that were necessary.
