About 100 pounds of spent grain spilled onto Mahantongo Street on Monday after a valve broke on a holding tank at D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc.
A Yuengling employee named John, who declined to give his last name, said a valve broke on a tank about 6:30 p.m., causing the yellow mess to run from the building at Fifth and Mahantongo streets to Centre Street.
Joe Spotts, environmental and safety manager with Yuengling, said the spent grain would be cleaned up and Yuengling was going to pay the cost. He couldn’t recall something like this happening at the brewery.
Spotts notified John Matz, Schuylkill County emergency management coordinator, about the incident, but added the material is not hazardous. Spotts said Jennifer Yuengling, the brewery’s assistant operations manager and daughter of the brewery owner and president, Richard L. “Dick” Yuengling Jr., had been notified. He did not know if Dick Yuengling had been told of the malfunction.
Womer’s Towing, Pottsville, Felty’s, Pine Grove, the Pottsville street department and Yuengling employees cleaned the mess. The grain will go to a local farmer, according to brewery employees.
Pottsville Fire Chief Todd March said he was coming back from the Pottsville City Council meeting at city hall when he heard about the incident and blocked the road near the brewery with his vehicle. Mahantongo Street was blocked from Second Street to Fifth Street.
In his forty years as fire chief, March said he never witnessed such an event.
“Obviously, it’s quite a mess here,” he said.
The Good Intent Fire Company and American Hose also responded to the scene.