Spill at Home Market Foods

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) confirmed this week a chemical spill of 197 gallons of sulfuric acid at the Home Market Foods’ manufacturing facility at 140 Morgan Drive in Norwood on June 16.

According to the DEP, an estimated 197 gallons was leaking from an above-ground storage tank on the site. The spill occurred on June 16, and was reported to the DEP on June 18. According to the DEP, any spill of more than 10 gallons of hazardous materials needs to be reported within two hours from the time of knowledge of the incident.

Home Market Foods released this statement to The Norwood Record: “On June 17, 2026, there was a report of a leak of sulfuric acid inside our facility in Norwood,” the statement read. “Our team promptly responded, cleaned up the spill, and reported the leak to the regulatory authorities. No members of the Home Market Foods team or the public were harmed in the incident or the clean up, nor was there any harm to the environment.”

The DEP issued a notice of responsibility (NOR) to Home Market, which details who’s responsible, required actions for cleanup, and timelines and penalties for said cleanup.

Norwood Conservation Agent Carly Rocklen said the release went into a sanitary sewer, which is not under the purview of the Norwood Conservation Department. She said originally it was thought that the acid drained into a storm drain, for which the department would have been responsible.

DEP inspector Jaime Goncalves reported in his site inspection – for which he showed up, reportedly unannounced – that a “pinhole” leak in the storage tank flowed out into the secondary concrete containment area, which then spilled into the building’s onsite wastewater treatment / sanitary sewer.

The DEP NOR notice reported Home Market as a “partially responsible party” and may be found liable for damages up to three time their cost to cleanup, per the DEP’s procedures. It also has a provision for 12 percent interest on said payments.

The DEP is requiring that all waste and associated remediation waste must be properly handled, stored and disposed of “as soon as possible,” within 120 days of the waste generation. The DEP is also requiring a licensed site professional to supervise any cleanup actions it may require.

Sulfuric acid is a dangerous chemical that can cause severe burns on the body wherever it touches. Extreme exposure can be fatal, but no injuries were reported in this incident.

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According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), “Touching sulfuric acid will burn your skin, and breathing sulfuric acid can result in tooth erosion and respiratory tract irritation. Drinking sulfuric acid can burn your mouth, throat, and stomach; it can result in death. If you get sulfuric acid in your eyes, it will cause your eyes to water and will burn.”

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently fined a company $3.5 million fro spilling millions of gallons of sulfuric acid into a containment basin in the area of Houston, Texas – https://gvimes.link/slfracd

Readers may remember a coolant leak led to the death of on worker in 2022, for which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just reached a $1.1 million settlement – https://gvimes.link/epahmf

Several fires and issues around truck parking have also been historically reported at the site over the years.