Derailment spills blue cheese near Salton Sea

MECCA, CALIF. —  Blue cheese dressing and concrete sealant spilled into a canal leading to the Salton Sea when 19 cars in a 52-car freight train derailed in the Southern California desert.

It will take a few days to clean up the mess, Union Pacific officials said Wednesday.

The Los Angeles-bound train derailed for unknown reasons about 4 p.m. Tuesday along California 111 north of the Salton Sea, authorities said.

The three crew members were uninjured, but a Riverside County Fire Department firefighter was taken to an Indio hospital for treatment of heat exposure, Battalion Chief Jorge Rodriguez said.

Spills of sealant, bulk containers of blue cheese dressing and other food products made it into a canal about a mile from the north shore of the Salton Sea, hazardous materials specialist Robert Becker said.

The Coachella Canal was mostly smeared with salad dressing.

“There was blue cheese -- a lot of it,” Becker said.

The canal was dammed and there was no threat to the Salton Sea, he said.

California 111 was shut down temporarily and motorists were routed onto agriculture roads to get around the site. The highway was open Wednesday, the California Highway Patrol said.

Union Pacific spokesman Joe Arbona said the train was on a run from Dupo, Ill., to Los Angeles. The track reopened Wednesday afternoon, Arbona said.