Mendota and Troy Grove fire and rescue personnel responded to a call from the ADM Milling & Rail Terminal about an explosion in their wash bay.

Jason Stewart, a terminal manager for Foodliner who was working in the wash bay at the time of the explosion, said that the 911 call was made at 9:15 a.m. and response personnel were on the scene roughly 10 minutes later.

Stewart said that the explosion was caused by a gas leak from a faulty regulator that put too much gas in the wash bay system.

“It sounded way worse than it actually turned out to be,” he said. “We just called 911 and evacuated the building as a precaution.”

The faulty regulator is out of commission and is going to be replaced, Stewart saud, though the system will still work without the use of the regulator, and the wash bay would not be active for “a couple of hours.”

Stewart explained that the gas used in the wash bay is used to heat the water used to 180° to clean the inside of the tankers at the facility. While the gas is not in use, only the outside of the tankers will be cleaned.

He said that this setback will not be severe to operations.

Messages left with the Mendota Fire Department were not returned by press time.