Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


Crews were on scene late Monday night and into early Tuesday morning cleaning up a hazmat situation that resulted after semi-truck rolled over in an industrial area of Green Oak Township.

The Green Oak Township Police and Fire Departments and Livingston County EMS were dispatched around 10:10pm to Plaza Drive in an industrial park off M-36 for a reported semi rollover. It’s the area behind where the old Barnstormers building was located.

Fire Chief Kevin Gentry tells WHMI upon arrival, units found the driver was injured and he was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He has since been discharged.

Gentry says the semi had a general hazmat placard on it and was leaking from the top where it had rolled over. It was also leaking diesel fuel.

The Livingston County Hazmat Team assisted the fire department in identifying the chemical as sodium nitrite – a moderate corrosive base that was leaking into the ground.

Gentry says the tank was shut off and crews worked to clean up the scene and upright the damaged truck. He says the ground and area surrounding the spill has been removed, there was no inhalation hazard, and no hazard to neighboring communities.

The scene was cleared around 2am. Gentry said it took two large wreckers to upright the semi, which couldn’t be done until the sodium nitrate and diesel leaks were controlled.

The cause is under investigation. Gentry noted it is a very low speed industrial park but the semi somehow got its wheels into a drainage ditch, causing it to flip over.