NINNEKAH — The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and the State Fire Marshal’s Office are investigating three fires in two and a half months at all three sites in Grady County where Bordwine Development stored flammable hand sanitizer, the Southwest Ledger was told.
A raging fire erupted around 1 p.m. Oct. 18 at a warehouse located in Ninnekah, just south of U.S. Highway 81 and State Highway 19; an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 pallets of ethanol-laced hand sanitizer were stored at the site formerly occupied by H&B Machine & Manufacturing. Boiling smoke was visible from Interstate 44.
Firefighters from Chickasha, Ninnekah, Alex, Bradley, Pioneer and Grady County responded to the conflagration. Chickasha firefighters were still at the scene five hours later.
“Some of our guys are getting relieved, but several are still there,” a Chickasha Fire and Emergency Medical Services dispatcher said.
The flames were extinguished after several hours, but firefighters remained on the scene overnight “to keep an eye on it and make sure the wind didn’t come up and carry the embers away,” said Amanda Wilkerson, deputy director of Grady County Emergency Management.
Grady County Emergency Management Director Dale Thompson said more than two dozen firefighting vehicles and approximately 40 firefighters were on the scene battling the flames. Firefighters sprayed no more water than was necessary to avoid flushing contaminated water into a nearby creek, Thompson said.
Ledger Associate Publisher JJ Francais was at the scene approximately 30 hours after the fire was extinguished and reported that bottles of hand sanitizer were “still popping and exploding.”
The cause of the Ninnekah fire was not immediately known. However, the State Fire Marshal’s office reported that both fires which occurred in August at Bordwine properties in Chickasha “had human involvement, and spontaneous combustion of the product is not being considered as a likely cause.”
During a site visit in August, DEQ inspectors found hundreds of pallets of hand sanitizer stored inside and outside a warehouse at the Ninnekah location that “were not managed in accordance with hazardous waste regulations,” state inspectors reported. Also, crushed bottles of hand sanitizer were seen leaking onto the ground inside and outside the building.
The warehouse and many pallets of hand sanitizer were destroyed in the fire, but several pallets covered by a blue tarp were untouched by the flames. Some pallets of hand soap and lotion also were untouched by the fire.
Although hand sanitizer was stored at the site, no one worked there “since the building was used as a disposal facility for the hand sanitizer,” according to Wilkerson.
In an administrative compliance order issued on Aug. 22, Scott Thompson, executive director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, imposed a record $6.65 million administrative fine against Brannan Bordwine and his development company – the largest in the agency’s history. Thompson also ordered Bordwine Development to properly dispose of their remaining supplies of hand sanitizer and cease sales of their product.
“The fine has not been paid,” Skylar McElhaney, director of the DEQ’s Office of Continuous Improvement, told the Ledger on Oct. 4.
Bordwine’s attorney, Peter Scimeca of Oklahoma City, said his client appealed the fine by requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge that is scheduled for Oct. 27, a DEQ spokesperson said.
“We are working with DEQ to resolve these problems,” Scimeca added.
Deliveries first reported to state DEQ in July
Bordwine and his company came to the attention of the DEQ on July 19. The state agency fielded a complaint that the company was receiving “semi-truck loads of hand sanitizer and dumping” the product on the ground at the former Chickasha Manufacturing building on old U.S. Highway 81 and State Highway 19, less than a mile from the Ninnekah site. Brannan Bordwine reportedly was leasing the Chickasha Manufacturing site, which the DEQ referred to as Facility 1.
The DEQ received a complaint on July 21 alleging that Bordwine employees were “dumping and burying” several loads of hand sanitizer and recalled hand sanitizer at the former H&B site in Ninnekah, which the DEQ referred to as Facility 2. Brannan Bordwine reportedly has been leasing the Ninnekah location, too.
And on Aug. 3, the DEQ received information that pallets of hand sanitizer were being stored in shipping containers at Bordwine’s principal headquarters at 1102 Pikes Peak Road in Chickasha, which the DEQ referred to as Facility 3. Brannan Bordwine owns that piece of property, records in the Grady County Clerk’s Office reflect.
During inspections of multiple Bordwine sites in late July, DEQ personnel found hand sanitizer stacked “two and three pallets high” outside and inside warehouses, loose bottles of hand sanitizer on the ground and loose cardboard, plastic and pallets on the ground around the buildings.
In addition, state inspectors reported, Bordwine employees were using a loader/backhoe to put unpalletized hand sanitizer bottles into an open-top semi-trailer truck, crushing the bottles and removing the crushed plastic into another container “while allowing the liquid hand sanitizer to drain” out of the truck and onto the ground.
They also found an area at the Ninnekah site where a large open pit had been excavated and liquid “was standing in the pit,” along with loose bottles of hand sanitizer plus loose cardboard, plastic and pallets on the ground around the warehouse.
Aug. 7 fire consumed warehouse, contents
A fire broke out Aug. 7 at the Chickasha Manufacturing site. The building and its contents were “a total loss” and flames consumed “all hand sanitizer stored at the site,” the State Fire Marshal’s office confirmed. The warehouse reportedly encompassed approximately 100,000 square feet of space.
The origin of that fire has not been determined. The Ledger placed seven telephone calls to the Chickasha fire department in an attempt to talk to the fire chief and/or the deputy chief. However, every call either went to a recorded message or was abruptly disconnected.
Scimeca said witnesses told him the flames that destroyed the building and hand sanitizer began from a grass fire in a nearby ditch.
“Nobody lost more in that fire than Brannan Bordwine did,” Scimeca said.
Someone claimed that 1.5 million gallons of hand sanitizer were stored at the Chickasha Manufacturing site.
“We don’t know where that figure came from,” Erin Hatfield, director of the DEQ’s Office of Communications and Education, told the Ledger. “I have checked with our people, and we can’t confirm its accuracy.”
Scimeca said Brannan Bordwine’s intention was to recycle the material.
The hand sanitizer is approximately 60% to 70% ethanol, a volatile organic compound. Bordwine knows of a company in Tennessee that can separate the ethanol from the sanitizer and sell it for a fuel additive, Scimeca said.
“The COVID-19 crisis in the United States created an unprecedented stockpile of hand sanitizer,” the attorney wrote in a prepared statement he issued after the Aug. 7 fire at a Bordwine site in Chickasha.
Bordwine was “helping the nation recycle this unprecedented stockpile,” Scimeca wrote. “The public should know that we are working with state and local officials to safely and quickly recycle and/or dispose of the remaining stockpile of hand sanitizer in and around Chickasha according to applicable state and federal laws.”
Personnel with DEQ’s Land Protection Division and from the State Environmental Laboratory Services Division visited Facilities 1 and 2 on Aug. 8.
The DEQ was notified on Aug. 9 that Bordwine personnel were storing more pallets of hand sanitizer at Facility 3, and two days later a fire erupted at that site, too. DEQ personnel responded “and confirmed that the contents of three roll-off containers on the property had been burned…”
DEQ inspectors toured Facility 3 on Aug. 14 and observed 28 “totes” (approximately 8,400 gallons) of hand sanitizer. A tote is “an industrial-size plastic tub” in which liquids can be transported on railroad cars, Scimeca explained.
DEQ inspectors said they also found 20 to 30 pallets loaded with hand sanitizer.
“No evidence of attempts to comply with applicable regulations governing storage, handling or recycling of hazardous waste were observed,” the inspectors reported.
Agency inspectors collected soil, water and sediment samples at all three Bordwine locations on Aug. 14.
Hand sanitizer deemed to be hazardous for 2 reasons, DEQ says
Bordwine Development “failed to maintain and operate a facility in a manner that minimizes the possibility of a release of hazardous waste to the air, soil, or surface water which could threaten human health or the environment,” Thompson wrote in his administrative compliance order.
The hand sanitizer at Bordwine’s storage locations is identified as hazardous waste/material for two reasons, Hatfield said.
“The first is that the product flashed” and thus is considered hazardous material, under state and federal regulations, due to “ignitability.” Also, she said, “a good portion of the hand sanitizer is actually recalled material (and not just expired).”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration decrees that any recalled product is deemed to be hazardous waste and must be disposed of properly, Hatfield said.
Thompson issued a mandate on Aug. 22 that directed Bordwine and his company to:
- refrain from transferring, transporting, donating, selling, or otherwise making hand sanitizer available for public use;
- provide the DEQ with an “action plan” to adequately “identify, remove, and remediate the nature and extent of the release/discharge of hazardous waste” at the company’s three sites;
- and provide the DEQ with an “approvable compliance plan” to lawfully ship and dispose of all hand sanitizer in their possession, custody or control. The product stored at Bordwine’s HQ on Pikes Peak Road “has not yet been removed, as an approvable plan has not been submitted to DEQ by the facility,” Hatfield told the Southwest Ledger on Oct. 10.
The DEQ also imposed an “administrative penalty” of $6,653,850 “based on the facts and circumstances of this case…”