Hazmat incident at chemical plant in southwest Louisville prompts brief shelter-in-place order

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A shelter-in-place order was issued Friday morning for a half-mile radius around what emergency officials called a hazardous material incident in southwest Louisville.

MetroSafe confirmed the order was issued at the Chemours plant on Camp Ground Road in Rubbertown. Emergency responders arrived on scene at the plant just before 10:30 a.m. No one was ordered to evacuate the area.

According to Col. Joseph Bowman, deputy fire chief of the Pleasure Ridge Park Fire District, his team was dispatched to the plant on the report of a chemical spill of hydrogen fluoride. PRP's first responders on scene confirmed a leak from a rail car valve in the dome, Bowman said in a written statement Friday afternoon.

Bowman said a Level 1 hazmat was declared while air monitoring was conducted. No vapors left the plant's property, Bowman said. Plant personnel and PRP firefighters worked together and "successfully packed the leaking valve."

At 11:33 a.m., the leak was confirmed to be secured. Around 11:45 a.m., the public was notified the order was lifted.

Last month, the Trump administration reached a multi-state settlement with Chemours Co. over years-long, illegal discharges of synthetic "forever chemicals" used to make products resistant to water, grease and stains.

Under the agreement, filed in federal court in West Virginia, Chemours will pay a civil penalty of $22.5 million for alleged violations and spend $90 million over 15 years to mitigate PFAS discharges in three states: West Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.

Chemours, a spin-off of chemical maker DuPont, also agreed to install PFAS pollution controls for and surface water discharges and air emissions at a West Virginia facility at an estimated cost of $60 million, supply clean drinking water to communities near its West Virginia and New Jersey sites at an estimated cost of $280 million; and implement controls to reduce releases of PFAS and other toxic chemicals from its facility in North Carolina, based on a pending independent assessment.

Combined, the penalties and relief programs are estimated to cost at least $450 million, the Justice Department said. The settlement allows Chemours to continue manufacturing PFAS for commercial and military applications while preventing future contamination and protecting communities from existing pollution, said Adam Gustafson, principal deputy assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division.