FORT MILL, S.C. — A 300-gallon spill of potassium hydroxide at the Silfab Solar plant on Tuesday prompted safety concerns from parents at the neighboring Flint Hill Elementary School.
Fort Mill School District officials stated that no students were at risk and that air quality tests on the school campus showed no contaminants.
The spill occurred Tuesday morning at the Silfab facility, a site that community members have viewed as a potential hazard for years due to its proximity to the elementary school.
Although the district did not activate its emergency response plan, some parents and residents criticized the school system for what they described as a slow notification process and a failure to move students indoors during the incident.
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Hours after the spill occurred, community members attended a Fort Mill School Board meeting to express frustration over the incident and the district’s response.
Brandon Langford, a local community member, told the board that the leak confirmed long-standing fears about the facility’s location near the school.
“This only proves what we have been saying the whole time, coexistence with a hazard is not safety,” Langford said. He specifically questioned why students remained outside after the spill was reported. “All this time, children are still on the playground, that’s unacceptable, it’s a failure,” Langford said.
Other residents raised concerns about the timeliness of communication between the district and the surrounding neighborhood. Patrick Lloyd, a community member, said many people in the area were not alerted to the chemical leak as it was happening.
“People didn’t know that live in the community,” Lloyd said. He expressed skepticism regarding the flow of information from the solar facility to school leaders. “Trusting Silfab to tell us if there’s a real concern, I don’t think, is a good solution,” Lloyd said.
Superintendent Gray Young defended the district’s decision not to activate an emergency response plan, stating that officials acted based on guidance from first responders.
“The district was informed that the spill did not pose any danger to our schools or the community,” Young said during the meeting.
Young noted that Citadel EHS, an environmental services firm that monitors Flint Hill Elementary, was dispatched to the campus to conduct air quality testing.
“Citadel EHS was quickly able to confirm that no contaminants or chemicals were actively being detected on our site,” Young said.
According to the National Institutes of Health, potassium hydroxide is a corrosive chemical used in electronics manufacturing to clean silicon wafers for solar cells.
While the substance can cause damage to human tissue and metals, it is noncombustible and unlikely to become airborne during a spill. The chemical is regulated under the Clean Water Act, but does not fall under the Clean Air Act.
School officials said they intend to evaluate their response to the spill to refine future protocols.
“District staff will review the processes and actions taken in conjunction with York County Emergency Management to identify any areas for improvement,” Young said.
VIDEO: SC temporarily halts operations at Fort Mill solar plant after chemical spill
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