By Kirsty Ross
WESTBOURNE Grammar School will adopt new safety procedures following a chemical spill last Tuesday that took 35 firefighters most of the day to dissolve.
“We learned and will do some things differently,” said Geoff Ryan, principal at the co-educational independent school in Truganina.
Country Fire Authority (CFA) volunteers cordoned off the science block and spent more than five hours removing 15 litres of mixed chemicals.
Michael Masters, CFA incident controller, said there was a slight potential for an explosion.
Mr Ryan said the chemicals were diluted and not dangerous.
“You could swim in it and it wouldn’t do anything to you,” he said.
Up to 120 chemicals leaked from a plastic container into a steel holding tray and on to the lab floor, following experiments made on the Friday, before a lab assistant discovered them on Tuesday morning.
Mr Ryan said an unsealed spigot in the container caused the leak.
He said rather than pour chemicals into a sink, they are stored in containers each term and professionally emptied off-site.
“It certainly wasn’t corrosive, and didn’t eat through,” Mr Ryan said, correcting reports in The Age newspaper that chemicals were stored in a steel container.
“It actually caused very little disruption, and no classes were cancelled.”
The school will take on board recommendations by the CFA, including making a log of all chemicals used each day to avoid lengthy delays in the case of emergency.
Mr Ryan will also buy some new fail-safe chemical storage barrels.
Local police, and ambulance members also stood by at the spill.
CFA firefighters, fed through the day by Salvation Army volunteers, wore hazardous-material suits and breathing apparatus.
Mr Ryan said all the chemicals were decontaminated at the school and bagged, after being absorbed like stuff in “kitty litter”.
