Belfast tanker crash closes three-mile stretch of Route 1

BELFAST – Disaster and emergency crews rushed to Route 1 on the city’s east side Wednesday night after a fuel truck carrying 10,000 gallons of gasoline went off the road and landed leaking on its side in a ditch.

The incident resulted in a 3-mile section of Route 1 from the bridge in Belfast to Searsport being closed while the Department of Environmental Protection and the hazardous materials response firm Clean Harbors worked to clean up the spill. They were immediately summoned to the scene by city police and fire officials in response to the 8 p.m. accident.

Patrolman Wendall Ward said that the truck appeared to be leaking some of its highly flammable material into the ditch when he arrived at the scene.

Ward said it was decided to divert Route 1 traffic away from the crash moments after it happened and that detours would likely remain throughout the night.

“There definitely was a spill,” Ward said as the odor of gasoline wafted about him. “We have to be very careful around here. It’s a real disaster.”

Truck driver Robert A. Richard, 60, of Frankfort received a cut on the chin when his semi-tractor tipped over but had no other injuries, Ward said.

Ward said Richard told him he was headed south on Route 1 in an Irving Oil fuel transport truck when he suddenly encountered two pickup trucks racing side by side coming from the opposite direction.

Richard said when he attempted to avoid the oncoming trucks, his truck bogged down on the shoulder and rolled onto its side in the ditch in front of the Ice Cream Barn.

With the truck still on its side, workers from the Belfast Highway Department arrived with truckloads of sand and quickly improvised an earthen berm to prevent spilled gasoline from running beyond the ditch. A nearby culvert leads directly into to a drainage system that ends up in Belfast Harbor.

“They did a great job,” Ward said of the highway department crew.

Rescue personnel secured the scene and expanded the non-driving perimeter from the junction of Veterans Bridge at Route 1 and Swan Lake Avenue to a few miles away in Searsport.

Rescue personnel pointed out the potential danger to the public caused by the spill. With it raining, the absence of a breeze, humid atmosphere and low ceiling made it ideal for gasoline fumes to linger at ground level instead of being blown away.

“One cup of gasoline is the same as a stick of dynamite,” said a hazardous materials responder at the scene.