Danville-Boyle County Emergency Management was on the scene Friday evening after a commercial truck hauling some type of oil had a minor leak.

Mike Wilder, EMA director, said someone apparently flagged the truck driver down at a traffic light to let him know about the leak.

“He was traveling north on the bypass, this was close to 6 p.m. when we got the call, and he had started losing material at about the Perryville Road intersection,” Wilder said Saturday morning. He stopped around the entrance of the fairgrounds to get out and cut the leak off.

Wilder said when restaurants have all of their old grease and oil collected in a trap, a commercial hauler then picks it up to dispose of it, or it’s collected for other uses. Wilder believes the hauler didn’t have the valve lock closed good.

“Someone stopped him at a traffic light to tell him, and he’d realized what he’d done,” he said. The driver got out and fixed the valve, then left the scene. Wilder said no one knows what company he was hauling for.

One northbound lane was closed for about an hour and a half, but traffic was never completely stopped.

Wilder said due to the help of Caldwell Stone, they were able to get the slippery mess cleaned up efficiently with no injuries or damage done.

He said Caldwell Stone uses a machine that’s like a backhoe, with a brush attached to the front.

“But first, they hauled sand out to the scene. The spread a thin layer of it, then used the brush to knock it off the side of the road,” he said.

“Caldwell Stone helps the city and county all of the time — they are really great to us. They’ve helped me three, four times in the last couple of years doing things like this. It was cold and after-hours, and they had to bring a guy in from out of town. We really appreciate them.”

He said the company’s owner, Clay Albright, always responds to quickly and jumps in to help whenever they need it.

“If we’d had a commercial cleaner do it, some of the environmental people, we’d have been there three or four hours, at least …” Wilder said.

Danville firefighters assisted with the scene, and police helped with traffic control.

Cold, snow headed in next week 

Wilder says to be prepared for some real winter weather coming in next week.

“I think the early maps I’m looking at right now say there’s soe chance to maybe — up in the week a little, from Tuesday to Thursday — looks like we could get some fairly substantial snowfall.”

Of course, Wilder said that can change in a heartbeat.

“But as of now, it looks like we’ll get some measurable snow.” Wilder said the temperatures will also plummet — down to zero or below.

“But it’s January, so we can expect it.”