Residents near Greenville chemical plant shelter in place after morning blast
An explosion involving a herbicide chemical forced evacuations and triggered air quality monitoring in the Mississippi Delta.
By Austin Reed ·
Residents living near the eastern edge of Greenville, Mississippi, spent several hours sheltering indoors on Wednesday after an explosion at a local chemical facility. The blast generated a large plume of black smoke that prompted city officials to issue a precautionary order for nearby neighborhoods.
Emergency crews received notification of the incident at the Loveland Products plant shortly after 7 a.m. Central Standard Time. Sara Moreland Hester, a deputy emergency management director for Washington County and a local firefighter, confirmed that no injuries were immediately reported. By midday, Hester stated that the fire was extinguished and crews were finishing their work at the scene.
Preliminary information from plant management indicated that the explosion involved a fire associated with a herbicide chemical. Loveland, a company based in Loveland, Colorado, manufactures fertilizer, plant nutrition, and crop protection products. Its parent company, Nutrien, said plant leaders were coordinating with first responders during the event.
The shelter-in-place order was lifted shortly before noon. Greenville, a city of approximately 26,000 people located in the Mississippi Delta, sits roughly 120 miles northwest of the state capital, Jackson. The incident occurred in a mostly rural area on the city's eastern boundary.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality dispatched an emergency response team and an air-monitoring contractor to assess potential impacts on local air quality. The agency is currently evaluating the environmental conditions following the release of smoke into the atmosphere.
