No tickets issued in ethanol spill at Milton roundabout
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A tanker truck lies on its side on the far western roundabout on the Highway 59 bypass near Milton. The truck was carrying ethanol, so officials created a safety zone of 500 feet around the incident and allowed the ethanol to leak from the truck into a nearby retention pond.
MILTON — Milton police did not issue a citation to the driver or owner of a semitanker truck that tipped last week and spilled thousands of gallons of ethanol.
The truck was driven by a 22-year-old Rockford, Ill., man, according to the Milton Police Department accident report.
At 9:45 a.m. Nov. 27, the truck was traveling west on Highway 59 after leaving United Ethanol with a load of 8,300 gallons of ethanol, according to the report.
The load shifted and caused the semitanker truck to tip onto its side as the driver exited the roundabout closest to Highway 26, according to the report.
The driver was uninjured.
The Gazette was not able to reach a spokesperson for B&B Trucking of Wenona, Ill., the owner of the truck.
The accident caused 8,000 gallons of ethanol to flow into a nearby retention pond and prompted officials to evacuate the area for hours because of the danger of an explosion. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials said the ethanol would evaporate and not pose a threat to groundwater, Milton Police Chief Dan Layber said.
The truck drained all day, and authorities kept Highway 59 east of Milton closed until well after midnight.
The city of Milton has asked the Wisconsin Department of Transportations to shrink the center island in the roundabouts and expand the "truck apron," a paved inner ring that large vehicles can drive on.
That work is scheduled for 2013, DOT spokesman Michael Bie wrote in an email to The Gazette.
