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The call about the hazmat situation at the base came into Franklin County Emergency Management at 9:31 a.m. on July 11.
The incident at the AFCO facility located in the 800 block of Development Avenue in Letterkenny Township.
The acid leak was "a combination of water, nitric acid, phosphoric acid, and a dye mixture of those two acids" Shawn Cornwell with the Franklin Fire Company confirmed following a press conference that afternoon. The yellow smoke was a gas cloud created by the mixture, Cornwell explained.
Firefighters arrived to find 17 people with injuries, all of whom have been taken to WellSpan Chambersburg. Two are in the Intensive Care Unit in stable condition, eight were admitted for the night for observation, and the rest were still under evaluation for treatment just before 4 p.m. according to Cornwell.
AFCO chemist, hazmat, fire officials, and the Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Agency were still on the scene at that time monitoring other tanks after the leak was stopped.
The AFCO location is leased from the US government according to Cornwell.
Daily Voice reached out to the Depot and received the following statement, reading in full:
"The incident has taken place at a facility leased to a private company outside of depot property.However, a shelter-in-place is in order across Letterkenny Army Depot. We are taking 100% accountability of all our personnel.Emergency services are at the scene to determine the nature and extent of the situation. We will be providing more details as soon as we know more."
A spokesperson from the Depot messaged Daily Voice at 1:20 p.m. informing us that the shelter-in-place order had been lifted at 12:44 p.m.
In addition to the Depot, the Franklin County Prison also was under a shelter-in-place order on Thursday morning.
There are reports that OSHA is investigating but when Daily Voice reached out OSHA was unavailable to confirm this on Thursday, but on Friday morning we were sent the following statement reading in full:
"I can confirm that OSHA is investigating this incident. The latest report we have is 15 employees were taken to the hospital. OSHA has a total of six months to investigate and release its findings. No other information is currently available."
Check back here for possible additional updates.
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