Thousands of vehicles damaged after trucks spilled sulphuric acid

TRAIL — Thousands of insurance claims have been made after two acid spills along a B.C. highway damaged vehicles.

Insurance Corporation of B.C. spokeswoman Lindsay Wilkins said vehicle claims related to the April 10 and May 23 spills of sulphuric acid in Trail have topped 3,000, although fewer are now showing exposure to acid.

“These are complex claims that require extra time to process as each vehicle may have been exposed to varying degrees of sulphuric acid, affecting different parts and components of the vehicle,” Wilkins wrote in an email.

A technical expert has been retained to determine the level of contamination of each vehicle and a team of 30 is now dedicated to processing the claims, which Wilkins said are “complex.”

Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd. said on its website that the separate spills, one amounting to about 220 litres and the other of about 70 litres, occurred along as much as 16 kilometres of a commuter route.

The spills happened after Teck sold the acid from its Trail smelter and the buyer, International Raw Materials Ltd., contracted to move the corrosive liquid by truck to two other locations. The truck leaked the acid along the route, Trail Mayor Mike Martin said.

“I’ve seen numbers in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles per day that would be passing along that route in both directions,” he said, adding the number of southbound vehicles that could have splashed through the acid “would have been considerable.”

Two vehicles belonging to the Kootenay Boundary Regional Fire Rescue were damaged. “Essentially, a brand new fire engine worth probably in the order of around $800,000, as well as a command vehicle,” Martin said.

Teck spokesman Chris Stannell said the company “regrets the concern this issue has caused in the community.”

“International Raw Materials Ltd. was the owner of the acid and responsible for its safe transportation,” he said.

Teck said both spills were cleaned up, no acid seeped into waterways and there was no damage to roads or a bridge over the Columbia River.