Septic truck driver dies in Labor Day crash
Sep 3, 2012, 11:04 AM | Updated: 12:49 pm
The driver of a septic tanker is dead after he rolled his truck on SR-702 Monday morning in Roy.
The accident happened near the intersection of SR-509, just yards from McKenna Elementary School, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Roughly 3,000 gallons of waste water runoff spilled onto the roadway and emptied into a nearby drain, prompting a response from the Department of Ecology.
The driver and his stepson were working together to haul the waste to Portland from a landfill off of Meridian Road in Puyallup. The driver’s stepson was following the victim in a separate tanker truck.
“He had to be the one to witness this and to come up on the collision scene and have to deal with this, so we’re all thinking about him,” said Trooper Guy Gill. “He did everything he could to try to help, but there’s just nothing that could be done.”
The driver, a 49-year-old Colville man, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Gill said speed and visibility may have been factors in the crash.
