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Hazardous Materials Incidents
 Most serious hazardous materials incidents occur at fixed facilities within the county. There are in excess of 175 facilities in the county which stock reportable quantities of substances on the EPA Extreme Hazardous Substance notifications list. These facilities are located throughout the county.
Rail carriers routinely transport EHS materials through the county, and especially through the downtown area in close proximity to the primary Public Safety Answering Point, the seat of county government and, and downtown sports, convention, and entertainment venues.
Hazardous materials incidents may cause small to large sections of the county's population to be evacuated or the shelter-in-place. Notification, evacuation, evacuation routes, and transportation can be major problems in the event a large segment of the population must be relocated.
Hazardous materials carriers frequently travel along the major highways through the county. A Hazardous Materials Ordinance restricts carriers which do not originate or terminate in Marion County to I-465 for travel through the county. At present there is no estimate of the amount of hazardous materials traffic which traverses the county, however, incidents of EHS escaping from their transporters are relatively few.
A number of petroleum pipelines transport a variety of products through the southwest, northwest and north/northeast portions of the county. Products transported are fuels and flammable gases. There has been one major pipeline explosion in Marion County in the past ten years.
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