Freedom call to DEP: “Dike is containing the material”

When a Freedom Industries employee called the state Department of Environmental Protection to report the chemical leak that would contaminate the region's drinking water, he said that the leaky tank's containment dike was working and he did not think any chemical would enter the river.

When a Freedom Industries employee called the state Department of Environmental Protection to report the chemical leak that would contaminate the region's drinking water, he said that the leaky tank's containment dike was working and he did not think any chemical would enter the river.

Bob Reynolds, the Freedom employee who called the DEP at 12:05 p.m. on Jan. 9, did not even mention the river until about five minutes into the six-and-a-half minute call, and then only when he was directly asked about it.

When Reynolds was asked by the DEP operator whether the chemical was going into a creek or stream, he said, "Ah, don't know at this time. It's located right on the Elk River and right now the dike is containing the material, so we don't anticipate it going into the river."

The state Division of Homeland Security posted a recording of the call on its website on Friday night.

When the call was made, DEP inspectors were already on the site. They had arrived at the scene after local residents had complained of a strong licorice odor, now known to be caused by the leaked chemical, "Crude MCHM."

The DEP inspectors and other emergency officials arrived at Freedom at about 11 a.m., about an hour before the company officially reported the leak.

The first DEP inspectors on the scene described seeing a 4-foot wide stream of chemical flowing across the bottom of the containment dike and disappearing at the joint where the dike's wall met the floor.

The inspectors also initially did not realize the chemical was entering the river.

When Reynolds was asked by the DEP operator what time the leak occurred he said, "I heard it about 15 minutes ago, so it was shortly before that."

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Freedom call to DEP: “Dike is containing the material”