Updated: Truck Overturns, Spilling Chemical into Riverview Intersection

The intersection of U.S. 301 and Big Bend road was closed for two hours last night after a tractor-trailer truck transporting a fertilizer product overturned, dumping about a fourth of its 87,800 pounds of the load onto the road.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Orlando Soto, 28, of Ruskin was traveling north on U.S. 301 in a tractor-trailer truck owned by Dillon Transport at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, when he attempted to make a left turn to travel west on Big Bend Road.

However, according to troopers, Soto was traveling too fast to successfully make the turn. The truck overturned onto its right side, spilling an estimated 25,000 pounds of the chemical into the intersection. 

Although the highway patrol identified the product as ammonium nitrate, a colorless crystalline salt used in fertilizers, explosives, and solid rocket propellants, Patch readers report that Dillon Transport doesn't haul ammonium nitrate. Instead, the company transports diammonium phosphate, a nonhazardous fertilizer.