ROGERS — Officials with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality issued an emergency order Wednesday, stating that the former HAZ-MERT location, 510 W. Post Road in Rogers, is leaking various chemicals that could lead to an explosion.
The HAZ-MERT site, which houses chemical storage containers in a warehouse, is near several occupied homes, according to the ADEQ.
The Rogers Fire and Police Departments were notified Wednesday of the potential emergency conditions and inspected the facility to determine the level of threat to nearby houses.
“All we know is that we have pallets of containers marked ‘flammable liquid,’ and other pallets of containers marked ‘oxidizer,’” said Michael Dean, public information officer for the Rogers Fire Department. “We know from experience that if those two get together, it has the potential to become a very intense situation.”
There have been no evacuations in the area, authorities said.
“It’s a secure facility,” said Cpl. Angel Murphy-Pearce, public information officer with the Rogers Police Department. “We’ve assisted the Rogers Fire Department in making notifications to the adjacent property owners. We told them we were monitoring the situation to make sure of their safety.”
Dean said the ADEQ, and Rogers fire and police departments have no idea how dangerous the situation actually is.
“We have no way of really knowing what is in those containers,” Dean said. “Just because the containers are marked that way, doesn’t really mean that’s what’s in them. But we have to treat them like they’re labeled correctly.”
Dean said ADEQ has hired a firm to come in and overpack the containers and remove them.
“That should be going on Wednesday evening,” Dean said.
The HAZ-MERT facility, which is in bankruptcy court, was used to train personnel to clean up hazardous materials.
ADEQ officials had been poised to clean up the site earlier in the year, but work was never started because of liens on equipment that was supposed to be either sold or exchanged for the services of the contractor, according to information from the ADEQ.
The liens would have prohibited the ADEQ from being able to recover the cost of the cleanup from the estate or property sales, the ADEQ said.