No injuries have been reported after propane tanks with fuel left inside exploded at the Clairmont landfill Friday afternoon.
County Environment Manager Steve Madden says the tanks were buried in the load and hard for notice.
“When it’s in a large load like that, it’s very difficult to see, and when the staff were trying to break the load up a bit so they could see what was in it, it was too late; our heavy equipment had punctured one of the 100 pound propane tanks.”
The explosions sent a number of objects flying, and started a fire, but luckily no one was hurt.
Madden says the incident was completely avoidable, as there are free propane recycling programs at all County landfills and transfer stations.
“They need to be separated, they can’t be in those loads, and that’s what happened here. We should let everybody know that there recycling programs out there for these propane tanks, and this is the wrong place to put them.”
The County is now looking to track down who the load of trash came from.
The public and commercial haulers are encouraged to double check what materials they’re throwing away, and to notify landfill staff of anything hazardous.