A broken valve on a septic truck led to dumping of an unknown number of gallons of waste in downtown Ketchum Thursday afternoon around 3 p.m.
The waste, which was sprayed in the middle of the street and was running down gutters toward corner sewer grates, is at the intersection and on short tangents of Main and Fifth streets.
The truck was traveling south on Main Street and turned right onto Fifth Street, heading west.
The truck belonged to Sweet's Services, a septic tank and sewer management company based in Bellevue.
"I saw this truck go around the corner and stop right next to Veltex in the parallel parking spaces, just spewing this brown liquid all over the road," said Greg Boyer, a Hailey resident who works at Cancer Consultants, which is located at the intersection above the Idaho Independent Bank. "It was spewing this thick stream of brown liquid all over the street. This guy gets out of the truck, puts his hands on his head."
Boyer said the man got back into his truck, pulled into the alley behind Veltex and drove away.
"People are running around with their shirts over their noses trying to get away from the smell," Boyer said Thursday afternoon.
Ketchum Assistant Police Chief Mike McNeil said around 3:15 that an officer had been dispatched to the scene and that the fire department had been contacted to work on clean-up. He later said the accident was not intentional and that a broken valve led to the incident.
A Ketchum Fire Department official confirmed that the truck was carrying septic effluent.
