Authorities said the death toll from Tuesday’s rupture of a 900,000-gallon caustic chemical tank at a Longview, Washington, paper mill has risen to 11 after crews recovered the final missing worker Saturday.
Longview Fire Chief Brad Hannig said crews recovered the ninth missing employee from the site on the fifth day of response operations. Cowlitz County Coroner Dana Tucker said her office recovered and identified all nine workers missing in the rubble, along with one worker who died after being taken to St. John Medical Center. Another victim died after being taken to a Portland hospital.
Tucker identified the dead as Gilbert Bernal, 52, of Kelso; Tyler Covington, 29, of Castle Rock; Brad Covington, 27, of Castle Rock; Robert Wilson, 48, of Clatskanie, Oregon; Dale Miller, 54, of Portland; Jared Ammons, 35, of Longview; Braydon Finkas, 38, of Cathlamet; Clinton Doran, 26, of Kelso; John Forsberg, 51, of Longview; Norman Barlow, 58, of Vancouver; and Dillon Miller.
Gov. Bob Ferguson ordered flags lowered to half-staff Sunday, May 31, at all Washington state agency facilities in memory of those who died.
Officials later clarified that 10 people were taken to hospitals by ambulance after the rupture: nine Nippon employees and one firefighter. Two employees died, four were released from the hospital and three remained hospitalized. The firefighter also was released. Four others went to hospitals on their own and were treated and released.
Recovery efforts began Wednesday morning at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility after an inspection found the damaged tank was stable enough for crews to proceed. Officials said the tank held about 600,000 gallons of white liquor, a caustic chemical used in papermaking, at the time of the rupture and an estimated 550,000 to 570,000 gallons spilled. Testing later showed high-pH material reached the Columbia River.
Federal and state records show the facility has a history of environmental and workplace safety issues, including 19 informal environmental enforcement actions over the past five years, recent Clean Air Act violations, previous workplace safety citations and two ongoing workplace safety inspections unrelated to the tank rupture.
The Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers, the union representing mill employees, said it is focused on supporting affected workers and families. AWPPW spokesperson Josh Estes said the union would cooperate with investigators but was not prepared to comment on specific grievances, complaints, inspections or pending matters while investigations remain active.
AWPPW National Union President Scott Tift said the loss and heartbreak extend far beyond the facility and the Longview community. He said the victims were “not just employees or union members,” but family members, friends, mentors and co-workers who helped build the facility and community.
Nippon Dynawave President Matt Peerboom did not respond to multiple emails and a voicemail seeking comment about the company’s safety culture, regulatory history and recovery efforts.
Recovery effort ends
Longview Fire Chief Brad Hannig said Saturday that crews had found the ninth and final missing employee at the site, ending the search and recovery effort. Hannig said he hopes it gives families “the closure needed to begin the long process of healing.”
Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue Deputy Chief Kurt Stich described the recovery work as intense, methodical and physically laborious. Crews worked through indoor areas littered with desks, large cabinets and debris, using drones and repeated searches to ensure no victims were missed, he explained.
Longview Fire Battalion Chief Matt Amos said recovery work had been complicated by electrical hazards, structural collapse and hazardous materials. He said crews and the bodies recovered from the site had to be decontaminated before leaving the exclusion zone.
By Friday, Amos said, crews had used vacuum trucks and hundreds of feet of hose to reach an area that had previously been inaccessible because of physical obstacles and chemical contamination. After responders removed large amounts of chemical fluid, staff and contractors were able to move hundreds of feet deeper into the scene, he said.
Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein told reporters Wednesday that officials had shifted from rescue to recovery. He said crews wearing firefighting and hazardous materials gear searched affected areas with help from drones.
The initial response was hindered by white liquor, Goldstein explained, a caustic chemical mixture of sodium hydroxide, sodium sulfide and sodium carbonate. Amos said the chemical has a pH of about 13 to 14 and damaged some of the responders’ protective gear, forcing it to be taken out of service.
Goldstein said the spilled white liquor mixed with water from a failed on-site water main. He said the infrastructure shutdown is expected to limit production for a couple of other businesses at the Longview campus, which includes six or seven companies.
Authorities initially estimated about 90,000 gallons remained inside the collapsed tank. Goldstein said a closer inspection Wednesday found no more than 25,000 gallons left inside, and officials now consider the tank stable in its position.
Amos said Thursday that the 900,000-gallon tank remains in the same condition as the day before and is not expected to pose a risk of additional spills or a danger to areas where recovery crews are working.
Nippon Dynawave Director of Support Services Brian Wood said the rapid outflow from the ruptured tank blew out several walls in nearby shops and damaged mobile equipment. He said it was too early to estimate a timeline for determining the cause.
Goldstein said there is no recorded video of the rupture.
State and federal response
Gov. Ferguson said Wednesday that 46 Washington National Guard members were on site. They included 10 Civil Support Team members assisting with air monitoring, 20 Homeland Response Force members assisting with decontamination and an eight-member Fatality Search and Rescue team.
Ferguson said the state was bracing for the incident to become “the deadliest industrial tragedy in modern Washington state history.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard are also at the facility. Washington Department of Labor and Industries Director Joel Sacks said Wednesday that L&I will conduct a full investigation once emergency recovery operations have concluded.
Environmental monitoring and mitigation efforts continue. The Washington Department of Ecology and the EPA are assisting with air and water quality monitoring, and are working alongside NOAA to oversee mitigation operations related to potential environmental impacts.
EPA Federal On-Scene Coordinator Brooks Stanfield said Friday that flushing operations had produced marked improvement in pH levels in the ditch network. He said water in ditches above the city’s well fields had stabilized and returned to a normal range, and discharges into the Columbia River had not exceeded target pH limits.
Longview Public Works Director Chris Collins said the city is drawing water from Lake Sacajawea to help flush the ditch system, and residents should expect the lake level to slowly drop over the next week.
Officials said Sunday that water being discharged to the Columbia River remained at safe pH levels and that ongoing flushing operations had not pushed contamination into the river. They said pH levels measured in the ditch network had returned to a normal range, though residents were still being asked to avoid affected sloughs, dikes and drainage ditches until final confirmation is complete.
Authorities asked residents to continue avoiding affected sloughs, dikes and drainage ditches, and to keep pets away from those areas. More than 200 warning signs in English, Spanish and Chuukese have been posted throughout affected locations. Anyone who comes into contact with water in those areas should rinse thoroughly with clean water and seek medical attention if they experience unusual symptoms, authorities explained.
Officials said nearly 2,000 dead fish had been collected from ditch systems near the incident response area and in west Longview. Species collected included common carp, catfish, sunfish, bass, peamouth chub, bridgelip sucker and redside shiner. Crews also collected a single hatchery-raised coho salmon. Officials said there have been no confirmed impacts to fish or wildlife in the Columbia River.
Stationary and mobile air monitoring continues to show no detections of harmful gases at any level, officials said. Collins said some residents may notice a rotten-egg odor caused by hydrogen sulfide released as the product is diluted during flushing, but officials said ongoing monitoring indicates no significant threat to public health.
Stanfield said a small amount of white liquor reached the Columbia River in the first minutes of the incident before the outfall was shut off.
Wood told reporters the mill underwent an orderly shutdown after the rupture and is operating only critical infrastructure, including the effluent treatment system, with minimum staffing. He said the company has arranged to pay employees who are not working because of the incident.
Regulatory records
Washington Department of Ecology enforcement records show the mill previously exceeded wastewater discharge limits for biochemical oxygen demand, with monthly averages reaching as high as 770% of the legal limit. The records also document multiple instances in which wastewater pollutants exceeded state benchmarks, though regulators did not take formal enforcement action in some cases after the company performed required follow-up actions.
A public EPA database had identified the facility as a significant noncomplier under the Clean Water Act, but the Washington Department of Ecology later said that designation was incorrect. Ecology said Nippon Dynawave does not meet EPA’s criteria for significant noncompliance because some benchmark exceedances were counted as violations in the federal database.
State and federal regulators have assessed $41,500 in environmental penalties against the facility since 2017, records show. The penalties include a $2,000 civil penalty Nippon paid in August 2024 for exceeding the daily limit for total suspended solids during a March 2023 discharge.
EPA civil enforcement records also show a history of Clean Air Act violations. Nippon paid a $5,500 civil penalty on March 18, 2026, for violations involving the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, and resolved a $4,500 penalty in August 2024 for violations of sulfur dioxide limits. Those followed prior formal Clean Air Act penalties of $9,000, $9,000, $5,000 and $2,500, along with a $4,000 Clean Water Act penalty, assessed by state regulators between 2017 and 2022.
Ecology records also document recent releases of chemicals and wastewater. In March 2025, regulators issued the facility a warning letter after a diesel spill reached one of its wastewater discharge points. In May 2025, a safety valve released a mist of hazardous “black liquor” during a process startup. Regulators said the valve worked as intended and the company recovered the material. The facility also self-reported two wastewater discharges into the ground in mid-2025, one involving gaps in concrete pipe gaskets and another involving a car wash sump that overflowed because of a faulty sensor.
EPA facility records show that 5,702 people live within 1 mile of the facility, 25% of whom are classified as low income.
The EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory is an annual reporting database, not a record of illegal releases or permit violations. In 2024, Nippon reported 564,868 pounds of on-site releases of toxic chemicals, including 151,000 pounds of hydrochloric acid, 127,690 pounds of methanol, 105,800 pounds of ammonia and more than 113,000 pounds of manganese compounds. The filing also listed releases of zinc, lead and mercury, along with 12,744 pounds of formaldehyde and 15 grams of dioxin and furan compounds.
Legal and safety issues
The Washington Department of Labor and Industries has two ongoing health and safety inspections at the facility that are unrelated to the tank rupture. The inspections were initiated after complaints in March and May 2026. The March inspection, focused on health, involves a valve on an aqua ammonia clarifier tank. The May inspection, focused on safety, involves a sinkhole caused by a failed drain.
L&I cited the company in June 2025 after rigging equipment involved in a work-related accident that cost an employee a finger was moved before labor investigators cleared the scene. Records show four workers were exposed in the accident, and no penalty was assessed.
In 2021, L&I cited the facility for two other health and safety violations, but those resulted in a total of $3,400 in fines. The citations included a “serious” violation and a $700 penalty after a worker was exposed to a fall hazard on an unprotected platform more than 4 feet above the ground. Another “serious” violation involved employees failing to wear required face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A federal lawsuit filed by former employee Andrew D. Headley was dismissed with prejudice in April 2025 after the parties reached an undisclosed settlement. Headley sued Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in late 2023, alleging the company fired him wrongfully and retaliated against him after a December 2021 workplace injury. The lawsuit also alleged disability discrimination and interference with the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Last Updated on June 3, 2026 by Joe Douglass
