At least 1 dead, 9 injured and 9 missing in Longview implosion

One person was killed, nine were injured and nine others remain missing after a major chemical implosion at a Longview pulp and paper mill Tuesday morning, authorities said.

The rupture of a tank was reported around 7:20 a.m. at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in Longview, according to the city’s fire department. The incident involved a vat of chemical treatment product described as white liquor.

Eight employees and a firefighter were injured; it’s unclear if the person who died was an employee. All nine of the people who remain unaccounted for work at the mill, according to a joint statement sent by the city of Longview shortly before 5 p.m.

Residents were asked to stay away from Industrial Way and avoid the surrounding areas while emergency crews go to work, the Fire Department said. The department said there is no immediate threat to the public.

“It is impactful” for the Southwest Washington community, Cowlitz 2 Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said, acknowledging that there are first responders who have friends who work on the site.

The scene remains in recovery phase, as emergency responders continue operations. The number of missing people is also unknown.

Those hurt suffered injuries ranging from minor to critical, Goldstein said. The firefighter has since been released from the hospital.

The injured were taken by ambulance to hospitals in Longview and Vancouver, Clark County, the department said.

There are no immediate health concerns resulting from the implosion, said Washington State Department of Ecology spokesperson Anna Izenman. But spill responders are monitoring for affected wildlife.

The facility in Longview is a pulp and paper mill with around 550 employees, producing about 280,000 tons of bleached liquid packaging paperboard and wet lap and slush pulp each year, according to Ecology. The liquid packaging plant has about 450 employees.

The mill has a long history of environmental and other violations with both federal and state regulators, though the resulting fines have been relatively minor.

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Spill responders deployed to the paper mill, where the tank released a substance called white liquor into the storm drain system, which connects to the diking system, Izenman said. The diking system’s pumps, which discharge to the Columbia River, were shut off.

White liquor is a mix of heavily caustic chemical compounds that, when mixed with heat, breaks down the wood used by these types of mills so pulp can be extracted later in the process.

The tank containing the white liquor held about 80,000 gallons and was roughly 60% full, Goldstein said.

White liquor can’t be contained and collected like oil, Izenman said. It can only “self-neutralize” with water over time.

The implosion required a large response from fire-and-rescue agencies and coordinating with multiple hospitals as the number of reported patients climbed, according to 911 calls and dispatch records.

One employee called 911 and reported multiple people in the plant had chemical burns or were missing. The employees with burns were still at the implosion site, the 911 caller said, and couldn’t say for sure if everyone was safe and out of danger, according to 911 audio obtained by The Seattle Times.

“We need rescue units, fire department, everyone,” he told a 911 dispatcher.

911 dispatchers also fielded calls from family members of employees, saying their loved ones worked at the plant but they couldn’t get in touch with them.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had several tours planned throughout Southwest Washington Tuesday but canceled the open press events out of respect for those affected, her office said.

“Today’s implosion was an absolute tragedy,” the lawmaker said in a statement.

The site has a long list of environmental violations, complaints and safety concerns, including a longstanding and “significant” inability to abide by contaminant regulations, sometimes exceeding limits by nearly 800%, federal records show. 

Over the last five years, officials with the Environmental Protection Agency have informally cited the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co., for Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act violations at least 19 times and conditions were so bad that the agency resorted to more formal citations at least five times.  

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From the start of 2024 to the end of last year, the facility was found to have sustained a period of “significant” noncompliance for a portion of its discharged waste, or effluent, which exceeded federal standards for months on end — except when the mill failed to report their data — and spiked at 770% its normal limit last August. 

Of the five formal penalties leveled by the EPA against the mill, the two most recent were for a clean air act violation and a violation related to its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. 

For all its official violations over the last few years, the mill has been fined a total of $16,000, EPA records show. The agency has so far collected $10,000 of that.

The mill has also recorded violations for the improper operation and maintenance of equipment, industrial spills, failure to conduct inspections and more, EPA data shows. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Nippon in April 2025 with a violation related to moving equipment that had been involved in an accident and in September 2021 related to employees working with unprotected sides or edges, for which it was fined $700. 

There were two complaints filed against the company this year as well, one related to health concerns and another for safety concerns. Both cases remain open. 

Washington’s Department of Ecology fined the company $2,000 in 2024 for wastewater pollution and $4,500 for releasing more sulfur dioxide into the air than its permit allows. 

There were two complaints filed against the company this year as well, one for health concerns and another for safety concerns. Both are still open.

The North Pacific Paper Corporation, which shares an address with the Nippon Dynawave mill and makes products using pulp from the facility, failed to meet environmental regulations regarding carbon monoxide and “volatile compounds” twice in 2021, according to inspection data collected by the EPA.

The EPA also noted that the North Pacific Paper Corporation had another violation logged in March, but the nature of the violation was not immediately clear.

In 2017, about 4,000 to 5,000 gallons of sulfuric acid spilled at the Nippon Dynawave plant, Cowlitz County and Longview city officials said at the time, according to past news reports. The spill was quickly contained and no one was injured.

The company called 911 to report the incident, which was caught by a containment moat, Nippon Dynawave said at the time.

Japan-based Nippon Paper Industries bought the liquid packaging mill in 2016 from Weyerhaeuser Co., a Seattle-based timberland company, for $285 million.

Seattle Times staff reporter Lulu Ramadan and news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this story.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.