NINNEKAH — Another fire at the former H&B Machine & Manufacturing site in Ninnekah destroyed methanol-laced hand sanitizer, and the gooseneck trailer on which the products were stacked, on June 2.
Fire consumed everything on the trailer, and the trailer too, which buckled under the intense heat fueled by the flammable hand sanitizer.
Southwest Ledger was unsuccessful Saturday in its attempt to contact someone with the Grady County Fire Department, which was summoned to the fire scene the day before.
The blaze was the fourth fire to occur in less than a year at three locations in Grady County where Chickasha businessman Brannan Bordwine stored hand sanitizer that was pulled from shelves after it was found to be contaminated with methanol.
• A fire broke out at the former Chickasha Manufacturing site, 5501 S. Fourth Street (U.S. Highway 81 and state Highway 19) on Aug. 7, 2022, and burned for more than a day.
Hand sanitizer at the site was so volatile that when the fire erupted, the cast-iron lids on two manholes were blown off and the municipal sanitary sewer briefly caught fire from sanitizer that flowed into the line, state and local fire officials reported.
During the fire, a warehouse on the property and its contents were “a total loss” and flames incinerated all hand sanitizer stored at the site, the State Fire Marshal’s office confirmed. The building reportedly encompassed approximately 100,000 square feet of space.
“The building was not in legal occupancy status at the time of the fire,” the State Fire Marshal wrote in an “Origin and Cause Report” dated Aug. 11. Pallets of hand sanitizer boxes filled the interior of the building “from floor to ceiling” and the exterior yard area, too. Also, the exterior walls were filled up to the roof and around the building with pallets of hand sanitizer boxes.
When DEQ investigators toured the site in late July 2022, Bordwine told them the hand sanitizer originated in China and Mexico “and cannot be shipped back.” He later acknowledged he had a contract with Latitude Liquids to store and recycle the tainted sanitizer after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a nationwide recall.
Bordwine “entered into an oral lease” of that property from Blessed Chickasha Collective in June 2022, a lawsuit petition relates. A condition of the lease was that Bordwine’s operations were to be conducted “in a safe manner which would protect [the] property from damage.” That lawsuit was filed Feb. 9, 2023, in Grady County District Court and is still pending.
• On Aug. 11, 2022, four days after the fire at the former Chickasha Manufacturing site, firefighters were summoned to extinguish flames at Bordwine Development’s principal headquarters at 1102 Pikes Peak Road in Chickasha. Bordwine owns that piece of property, records in the Grady County Clerk’s Office show.
According to the state Department of Environmental Quality, hand sanitizer dumped into three roll-off containers on the property was consumed by fire.
Construction dumpsters “were being utilized for … disposal of hand sanitizer products,” the State Fire Marshal wrote in a report the next day.
Scott Thompson, executive director of the DEQ, issued an emergency order on Aug. 12, 2022, that accused Bordwine of creating “a public nuisance” by improper transportation, storage and disposal of the hand sanitizer. “Immediate action” was required to “protect the public health, welfare, and environment.”
Thompson demanded that Bordwine “immediately cease” transporting, receiving and improperly disposing of “any and all” hand sanitizer.
Ten days later, on Aug. 22, 2022, Thompson issued a compliance order against Bordwine because of the hand sanitizer fires in Chickasha, and also imposed a record $6.65 million administrative fine.
• Another fire, on Oct. 18, 2022, destroyed a warehouse Bordwine leased in Ninnekah at 1003 W. Quail Lane, the site formerly occupied by H&B Machine & Manufacturing. Also consumed by flames were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 pallets of methanol-laced hand sanitizer stored there.
The Oklahoma State Fire Marshal submitted a report the next day which related, “Property was previously and currently improperly storing pallets of recalled hand sanitizer and other liquids.” Two months earlier, on Aug. 10, 2022 – three days after the first fire at the H&B location – the OSFM issued a “Stop Work” and “Stop Operations” order to Brannan Bordwine.
Hearing set Aug. 14 on DEQ application
On Nov. 18, 2022 – one month after the fire at the H&B site – the DEQ filed an emergency application for a temporary injunction ordering Brannan Bordwine to “not move or remove any hand sanitizer or any other item or substance from 1102 Pikes Peak Road, Chickasha, or 1003 Quail Lane, Ninnekah, or any other location in Grady County where hand sanitizer may be stored.” The request was approved by Grady County District Judge Kory Kirkland.
A photograph taken March 9 at Bordwine’s headquarters showed a pile of material on the east side of the property that was believed to have been excavated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last December. The material was missing in a photo shot June 3 from the same location.
Kirkland scheduled a hearing for Aug. 14 on “the merits of DEQ’s emergency application.”
A hearing before a DEQ administrative law judge on Thompson’s cease-and-desist order issued to Bordwine last August is tentatively scheduled for a week in July. And the record $6.65 million administrative fine has not been paid.
Gerald Davidson, Special Investigator with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, acknowledged in a March 22 email to Southwest Ledger that the OSBI “did assist in the investigations” of the Bordwine fires last year “at the request of Grady County District Attorney Jason Hicks.” However, information the agency gleaned would have to come from Hicks’ office because investigative reports compiled by the OSBI “are confidential,” Davidson wrote.
In its reports on the fires last year, the State Fire Marshal wrote that all three cases would remain open “pending further investigation” by the OSBI, the OSFM and the Chickasha Fire Department.
Questions asked
The Ledger sent an email inquiry June 3 to the OSBI and to the State Fire Marshal’s Office, asking whether either or both agencies plan to investigate the latest fire.
The Ledger sent an email to an official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Dallas, Texas, on March 30.
“The EPA had one or more investigators on the scene of at least one of the three fires that erupted last August and October at Bordwine’s hand sanitizer storage sites in Chickasha and Ninnekah. Photos of at least one EPA representative were taken at the scene,” the Ledger related.
“Has the EPA concluded its investigation into those fires? Has the EPA issued any report in re the fires? Has the EPA determined whether any/all of those fires were set intentionally or occurred by accident?”
The EPA official never responded.
The Ledger sent another inquiry June 2 to two officials with the EPA in Dallas, asking whether the federal agency:
• “Reached any conclusions in re the three fires at Bordwine’s storage facilities in Grady County last year?”
• “Filed any complaints or charges, or imposed any fines, against Brannan Bordwine or Bordwine Development, or any of his other companies, as a result of those fires?”