FREDERICKTOWN — A fisherman found a 15-gallon plastic barrel in the Kokosing River near the Fredericktown Community Park on Friday, and contacted the Knox County Sheriff’s Office for help. The white drum appears to be about half filled with an unknown clear, sticky liquid, according to Fredericktown Fire Chief Scott Mast, who secured the barrel after being contacted by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on Sunday.
Mike Miller, ODNR Department of Wildlife officer, said he was contacted by a sheriff’s dispatcher sometime after noon on Friday, but he was unable to check out the situation until Sunday. Miller said he was assigned to Delaware County on Saturday, and did not contact the fire department until he could check the complaint personally.
“A lot of times you get calls and it’s not what people say it is, so I’m not going to call people until I get a chance to go check it out myself,” he explained.
When Miller located the barrel, he contacted Mast, who came to the scene and called Knox County EMA Director Marie Blubaugh. Miller and Mast also contacted the Ohio EPA. Miller said they were instructed to secure the barrel and move it to a safe location. Miller said there was no evidence the barrel was leaking.
“I told Scott [Mast] to follow EPA’s recommendation,” Blubaugh said. “If they told you to secure the drum, then you secure the drum.”
Ohio EPA spokesman Erin Strouse said this would follow standard procedure.
“The information seems to fit our typical protocol as long as the barrel is not leaking,” Strouse said. “We would typically ask the local fire department to secure the barrel and wait.”
Blubaugh said she does not have to be on scene for all potential hazmat incidents.
“If it’s less than 25 gallons, I don’t have to be notified unless it’s going into a stream or river or somebody’s well,” she said.
She added that ODNR was on the scene, and that hazmat situations in rivers is its responsibility.
“Since it was in the river, ODNR handles everything that goes in the river,” she said.
Blubaugh said the Ohio EPA’s orphan drum coordinator, who oversees the analysis and disposal of drums and barrels that show up from unknown sources, should be making arrangements to come and check the contents of the drum, to determine how to dispose of it. It is currently in the custody of the fire department.
Strouse said the orphan drum coordinator will arrange to have the unknown substance analyzed, and the drum taken away in the next few days. An outside company will be contracted to dispose of it.
Mast said he contacted representatives of two local companies upstream from where the barrel was located, but neither was familiar with the type of container that was found.
Miller said he has seen other containers dumped in waterways during his 20- year career, and they usually end up being nontoxic. He added that there is no way of determining how long the container had been in the river.
“It is entirely possible that it sat in the river for 10 or 15 years,” he said. “It could have seeped into the river slowly.”
The veteran wildlife officer said finding things dumped in the waterways is unfortunate, but not a reason to panic.
“I’m not concerned about it at all,” he said. “If I was concerned about it, I wouldn’t have moved it.”
Strouse said the Ohio EPA will make the public aware if anyone was exposed to any hazardous material while the barrel was in the river and while being stored at the firehouse.
“If it’s a danger to the public, we will let the public know,” said Strouse.