Photo by Eric Keith / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Aaron Riecke and Bob Abernathy take water samples from a container storing runoff from the site of last week’s chemical fire at 1302 S. Fourth St. Tuesday afternoon. The samples will be tested before Rieke Environmental can determine how to dispose of the waste.

A hazmat crew bulked makeshift dikes and dams near the Missouri River on Tuesday as they awaited lab results of water and soil samples from a chemical fire at a chemical warehouse.

Officials held the hope that only a small level of chemically contaminated water flowed into the river or the St. Joseph sewer system. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources said some runoff water escaped when firefighters first began dousing the warehouse blaze last Friday.

“But we don’t think it was enough to have any sort of significant environmental impact,” said Larry Archer, a department spokesman.

Meanwhile, officials in Kansas City have began testing downstream water from the Missouri River for traces of the widely-used herbicide atrazine, which was stored in the warehouse. They have not reported an increase.

The smoky blaze was difficult to control because it came into contact with tons of atrazine that were stored in the sprawling warehouse. Firefighters tried to use as little water as possible to minimize runoff. Atrazine reacts with water to create slurry. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Bill Brinton, Buchanan County emergency management director, said the building is rented to Pony Express Warehousing LLC, which was storing atrazine for Albaugh Inc., a local crop chemical company.

Officials at Pony Express and Albaugh did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday. The warehouse is located at 1302 S. Fourth St.

Pony Express has hired Shawnee-Kan.-based Rieke Environmental for environmental cleanup. Vice President Duskin Jerde said reinforced dikes and dams will prevent runoff from any additional rainfall that may occur by early next week, when they get lab results.

Nearly 21,000 gallons of water used by firefighters, the fire suppression system and rainfall are stored in a tank at the scene.

“We’re not in the transportation and disposal mode yet. We need to find out the levels of the contamination,” Mr. Jerde said.

Mr. Brinton said there are between 125 and 135 St. Joseph companies that have registered with the county as storing dangerous chemicals.

Ahmad Safi can be reached at ahmadsafi@npgco.com.

CORRECTION: The story “Runoff hoped to be minimal” on Page D6 of Wednesday’s business section contained an error, due to incorrect information provided to the News-Press. Tons of atrazine that burned in a chemical fire at Pony Express Warehousing LLC are not owned by Albaugh Inc.