Glass leak disrupts Guardian plant

UPDATE: The Quad City BusinessJournal has since reported that about 500 tons of molten glass were spilled Monday afternoon at Guardian Industries' glass manufacturing plant in DeWitt, Iowa. The glass leak happened during routine maintenance, and six fire departments spent about five hours pouring cold water on the spill. The plant is designed for molten glass to flow into the basement in such an event. "This is the first time we've had to use it at the DeWitt plant," William Rice, human resources manager for the company, told the Quad City BusinessJournal. Read more...

A leak at Guardian Industries’ float glass plant in DeWitt, Iowa, was reported about 1 p.m. Monday and attracted help from DeWitt emergency responders as well as others in the Clinton County area, according to a Jan. 30 Quad City BusinessJournal report.

“We were in the process of doing routine maintenance when a small leak happened. We asked the DeWitt Fire Department for assistance,” reported William Rice, human resources manager at the facility. “It might take us a couple of days to get that line back into production, but we do have other production processes in the plant that were unaffected,” he is quoted as saying in the article.

No injuries were reported at the scene. The incident occurred in what Rice called the “hot end” of the plant, where temperatures reach 2,850 degrees, according to the article.

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