On Thursday evening, Calumet-Montana Refining employees responded to a minor leak. As a precaution, Smelter Avenue northeast was closed to both lanes of traffic from 6th Street to the intersection of 9th Street and Old Havre Highway.
There were some reports of a noxious odor from people in the vicinity, prompting air quality tests.
“We did some air monitoring outside the plant [when] we were alerted there were some odors, and none of the levels were unsafe. So, there isn't any community health risk or environmental risk because of it,” explained Calumet’s communication manager, Lanni Klasner.
In a press release later Thursday night, it was said the incident was caused by a hydrocarbon release, the uncontrolled escape of oil or gas into the environment.
Calumet-Montana Refining said no employees were reported injured or ill, due to the gas leak.
“When you think of a refinery of our size, there's lots of equipment; at any point, there could be something that might leak, or there might be a challenge and we have all these safety precautions in place to address that,” said Klasner. “Last night, we did have a leak, and with that, our precautions went into place, and we followed all of our protocols, which included contacting the city and closing the road.”
Initial cleanup of the leak has been completed, as the affected equipment was quickly removed from service.
“These types of things don't happen very often, but we want to be transparent with the community and let them know if we do have any incidents on the plant, that we're following our safety protocols and we're alerting both the media, city officials and the community of what's going on,” said Klasner.
As of now, Calumet-Montana Refining said all refinery operations are back and running as normal.
