Unalaska, AK – Response crews worked yesterday to contain a minor chemical spill on an American President Lines container ship in Dutch Harbor.

Personnel from APL, the Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a chemical leak Wednesday afternoon onboard the APL Chile, a foreign-flagged ship that docked in Dutch Harbor late Wednesday morning. The chemical ethylenediamine was found leaking from a container onboard the ship. The container was filled with 55-gallon drums of the material from Dow Chemical, at least one of which presumably opened and spilled during shipping.

APL Dutch Harbor Operations Manager Brian Sewell said the company evacuated longshoremen from the APL Chile and offloaded the container to a trailer covered in protective sheeting last night. Now they're awaiting the arrival of a hazardous response crew from the shipping company's Oakland, California offices to figure out how to dispose of it. The APL Chile, which was en route from Houston, Texas to China, left Dutch Harbor this afternoon.

Firefighter Gary Gray of the Public Safety Department was on-scene for the cleanup Wednesday afternoon and evening, but said that firefighters were only there in case something went wrong. He said that in the event of a chemical spill, the responsible party, not Public Safety, is expected to have the equipment on hand to deal with it.

Ethylenediamine is flammable, corrosive, and environmentally hazardous, but biodegrades relatively quickly. It's used in the manufacture of fuel additives and a variety of other chemicals, according to a description on Dow Chemical's website.