A Pfizer manufacturing plant reportedly spilled over 1,000 gallons of a chemical within the process area of its facility.

The City of Kalamazoo said, “Pfizer notified them an estimated 1,057 gallons of methylene chloride were released within the process area of the manufacturing facility located on Portage Road,” according to FOX 17 News. 

As a result, a no-contact advisory along a stretch of the Kalamazoo River was issued Wednesday afternoon.

The discharged colorless liquid was placed into a dedicated drain that runs to the Kalamazoo Water Reclamation Plant for treatment.

Since the plant is designed and permitted to treat a maximum of 291 gallons of methylene chloride per day, city officials warned residents to stay away from the Kalamazoo River.

“High concentrations of methylene chloride can be harmful if people were to come in contact with it,” a News Channel 3 report stated.

WATCH:

Per Fox 17 News:

The Kalamazoo County Health & Community Services Department, in cooperation with the City of Kalamazoo Department of Public Services, are advising everyone to avoid contact with the Kalamazoo River from Paterson Street Bridge in the city of Kalamazoo to the D Ave Avenue Bridge in Cooper Township.

In a news release provided Wednesday, Health Officer Jim Rutherford said, “We decided to issue a No Contact Advisory for the stretch of river impacted by the methylene chloride release as a precautionary measure. This advisory will remain in effect until further investigation and sampling indicates that there is no risk to public health.”

The city added that sampling of the Kalamazoo River within the identified area is ongoing and will continue as long as necessary until results can be analyzed and the advisory lifted.

“Pfizer’s facility in Kalamazoo is also where Pfizer first mass produced its COVID-19 vaccine and where it is working on their new mRNA technology today,” Texas Lindsay writes.

“After Pfizer and BioNtech signed a letter of intent in March 2020 to work together on a vaccine, two Pfizer facilities were swiftly selected for developing the processes and manufacturing the product at an industrial scale. Located in Puurs, Belgium, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, both plants had the space, the know-how, the people, and the equipment to get to work right away,” Pfizer states.

From Pfizer:

Working in tandem, the teams at Puurs and Kalamazoo ordered equipment and vessels they thought they’d need. For the next 100 days, their goal was to build a formulation lab, design an industrial process, and produce the first batches of what they hoped would be an effective vaccine – one that could, in time, be distributed around the world, helping to put an end to the pandemic. The teams started changing existing filling lines, building formulations booths and new filling lines, constructing packaging lines and a “freezer farm,” while recruiting and training new colleagues. “All those were investments at risk, that’s the bet we took,” says Van Steenwinkel.

In Puurs, at the very beginning, they had space in three small rooms in a new building. In Kalamazoo, they used an existing formulation area that was already being used to produce two lifesaving medications. Before they could use that area for the vaccine, they went into overdrive to produce those two medications so they didn’t run into any shortages during the construction phase.

To keep with their aggressive timeline, the team decided to manufacture multiple investigational COVID-19 vaccine formulations in tandem, to be ready whenever a decision was made. Along the way, both facilities would also hire and train new colleagues to help accomplish the monumental task. All of this, of course, amid a surging pandemic. Protections were put in place to keep workers safe and to minimize downtime.

“The largest manufacturing site in the Pfizer network is located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This 1,300 acre facility manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), drug products (DP) and medical devices,” Pfizer writes.

News Channel 3 reports:

Methylene chloride is used in various industrial processes, in many different industries including paint stripping, pharmaceutical manufacturing, paint remover manufacturing, and metal cleaning and degreasing, according to U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA.

OSHA considers methylene chloride to be a potential occupational carcinogen.

The most common means of exposure to methylene chloride is inhalation and skin exposure, OSHA reports.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.


We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.