Meat Spill on I-880 in Oakland Causes Safety Changes – NBC Bay Area

Trucking safety advocates are calling for tougher rules for companies that transport animal by-products after a truck spilled piles of raw chicken parts on Interstate 880 in Oakland in May, causing four accidents and blocking traffic for hours.

“Something is clearly wrong here,” said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington-based group that regularly makes recommendations to state and federal lawmakers on how to improve safety on U.S. roads.

“When animal byproducts leak onto highways, harming and endangering all road users, it is a prime example of the need for the federal government to take action to assess the problem and find a solution.”

NBC Bay Area

The California Highway Patrol said the spill was caused by Darling Ingredients, a Texas-based animal rendering company. Law enforcement also confirmed to NBC Bay Area that the driver of the truck failed to stop after covering all four northbound lanes with 300 feet of bloody goo.

The truck was carrying chicken parts in an open trailer, and only a tarp was needed to cover the load.

As NBC Bay Area’s investigative unit first reported in June, Darling Ingredients has a long history of causing similarly gruesome spills across the country, including at least a dozen over the past two years in the small town of Clinton, North Carolina, that left blood, entrails and animal carcasses on the city’s roads.

“It’s just coming out of the trailers and onto the roads,” said Clinton Police Chief Anthony Davis, who has criticized the company’s cargo storage practices. “The smell is just awful.”

Following reports from NBC Bay Area, safety advocates joined Davis’ call for changes to the regulations.

“It sounds like from your investigative efforts that there is a really serious problem here,” Chase said. “We reached out to several commercial vehicle safety inspectors to find out how big of a problem this is, and surprisingly, it is a fairly widespread problem.”

Not only does Darling Ingredients have a history of spills, but the company also has a documented history of safety violations.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the branch of the Department of Transportation responsible for overseeing the safety and regulation of commercial vehicles, Darling Ingredients and its subsidiaries received at least 39 citations over the past year for overfilling trucks or not properly securing loads.

State and federal shipping regulations require companies to safely contain their cargo from leaks. However, in many cases, there are no regulations governing exactly how to do this, as is the case with shipping animal by-products. Other types of cargo, such as hazardous materials, have more stringent containment requirements.

“When any type of product, especially a very slippery product, falls off a truck, it can cause a lot of havoc on the road and kill people,” Chase said. “Fortunately, no one has died in the last few accidents, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any in the future.”

In the $7.3 billion U.S. meat processing industry, Darling Ingredients is the nation’s second-largest, behind Tyson Foods. Together, the two companies account for about 95% of the U.S. market, according to IBISWorld, a market research firm.

No one was seriously injured in the Oakland spill, according to the CHP. However, local authorities spent hours cleaning up the mess. The California Department of Transportation declined to disclose the cleanup costs associated with the spill or whether the agency will seek to recover those costs from Darling Ingredients.

The CHP said no tickets were issued to Darling Ingredients in connection with the spill, but the truck driver who was behind the wheel could potentially face criminal charges.

The CHP recently recommended misdemeanor criminal charges against the driver for failing to secure the truck’s load and leaving the scene of a spill, according to an agency spokesperson. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office told NBC Bay Area it is currently reviewing the case but has not yet made a decision on whether to charge the driver.

Neither the driver nor Darling Ingredients responded to NBC Bay Area’s request for comment.

In a previous statement, a spokesperson said the company “deeply” regrets the incident and is “cooperating with all relevant authorities.”

Because the truck driver did not stop, law enforcement had to quickly determine who was responsible for the leak.

John Del Rio had his dashcam on as he drove through piles of animal parts covering I-880 in Oakland in May, spilled by a truck operated by a Texas animal-rendering company. The truck didn’t stop after spilling its load, but Del Rio, who had been on the phone with his brother and sister-in-law throughout the ordeal, caught up with the driver and gave his license plate number to the California Highway Patrol.

John Del Rio happened to be driving home from work that evening on the freeway and contributed to solving the mystery.

Del Rio’s dash cam was on when his car was one of the first to hit the pile of meat.

“Oh my God,” dashcam footage captured Del Rio screaming. “Is that meat?”

Del Rio said his car was covered in stinking animal parts. Even after using a premium car wash, he found a piece of animal intestine hanging underneath the vehicle the next day.

“I don’t want to be gross, but my car was covered in it,” Del Rio said. “I had to use my wipers there a couple of times. It was that bad.”

Del Rio said he saw no sign of the truck that caused the spill, but he eventually caught up with it and reported its license plate number to a 9-1-1 dispatcher. The truck, covered in meat splatter, was hard to miss, Del Rio said.

John Del Rio

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he added. “You couldn’t miss it.”

He also sent the CHP dashcam video showing the Darling Ingredients logo on the side of the truck.

After driving through a meat truck, Del Rio said he couldn’t understand how a tarp alone could prevent that kind of cargo from spilling out the side of the truck.

“I’m so happy that you’re paying attention to this because I honestly feel like something’s going to come of this,” Del Rio said. “They should have secured the charges… it needs to be sealed.”