Cleaning up after crash near Mesquite is sticky business

Stephen Curran

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 | 10:54 a.m.

A tractor-trailer driver bound for Salt Lake City gave a new meaning this morning to the phrase "stuck in traffic."

His rig flipped and spilled more than 200 gallons of industrial-strength glue on Interstate 15 near Mesquite.

The spill was expected to force detours off the highway into at least the late afternoon, authorities said.

Dave Miller of Fontana, Calif., was driving his truck to a drop-off point in Salt Lake City when he apparently fell asleep about 2:15 this morning, causing the truck to flip and spill its contents on the stretch of highway just before the Arizona border, Nevada Highway Patrol spokeswoman Angie Wolff said.

Miller, who was not wearing his seat belt, suffered only minor cuts and bruises.

Miller now faces two traffic citations, one for drifting off the road and another for not wearing his seatbelt, Wolff said.

Crews this morning were still busy cleaning roughly 3 inches deep of the adhesive -- called trichloroethylene -- left stuck to the road, said Stephen Strawn, regulatory manager for H20 Environmental Inc., the company contracted by the Highway Patrol to clean up the mess.

Three vehicles left stuck to the road after the spill were quickly removed with minimal damage, Wolff said.

It could take crews until 6 p.m. to finish cleaning the spill, Strawn said, as workers determine which solvents are best suited for cleaning carpet glue from asphalt.

"We're still in the beginning stages (of cleaning)," he said. "I'm right now waiting to determine what to use to clean it. The problem you have is when you use solvents on the asphalt, it eats the asphalt."

H20 has cleaned "countless" highway spills, Strawn said, ranging from an oil spill on I-15 and a spilled shipment of cryogenically frozen worms.

The glue was stored in 5-gallon buckets, some of which stayed on the truck after it flipped, Wolff said.

Traffic meanwhile was diverted to State Route 170 through Bunkerville, a roughly two-mile detour from I-15, Wolff said.

The changed route had not caused a major back-up, as traffic continued to move.