Cleanup at the Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Company is expected to end in the next few days, and officials said the plant should be up and running again by the first week of April.

Plant spokesman John Balian said cleanup crews are expected to finish removing sheet metal, broken glass and other debris from the plant by the end of the week, and repairs of damaged equipment could begin as soon as Saturday. The plant, located at 2550 S. Industrial Parkway between Provo and Springville, has been closed since February, when an explosion ripped through the building that houses the casting floor.

The explosion occurred when calcium carbide, a chemical used to remove sulfur from iron, came into contact with water, creating combustible acetylene gas. Balian said the company is still trying to determine how the calcium carbide mixed with water.

Balian said officials don't think any of the casting equipment itself was damaged, but some equipment is expected to need rewiring and other repairs. Within the next week, workers will turn on the power and put the plant's casting equipment through a dry run -- operating with no iron in them -- to see if anything suffered serious damage.

"The casting machines are solid. They're built like tanks," Balian said. "(We'll) just cycle them back and forth and make sure that all the motors are spinning and all the wheels are turning."

Nearly 200 of the plant's 320 employees are back at work on the cleanup and repair, Balian said. Others will be brought in if needed, while Balian is considering putting those who haven't had a chance to come back to work into paid safety training. He said Pacific States will bring back all of its employees once the plant reopens.

Pacific States, a division of McWane Inc., manufactures cast iron pipe for the water and sewer industry.

The plant is almost finished with its internal investigation of the explosion, though investigators have not had a chance yet to speak with employee Tim Beardall, who was seriously injured in the explosion.

The Utah Occupational Safety and Health Division, the state's arm of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Association, is also still investigating the blast. Utah OSHA director Louis Silva said his agency's investigation will probably not be finished until at least the end of March.

Eleven Pacific States employees were hospitalized after the Feb. 17 explosion, with Beardall spending more than a week at the University of Utah Medical Center after suffering burns to his face and hands, and inhaling an unknown amount of toxic chemicals. Beardall was operating a crane when the explosion occurred and was the employee who was closest to the blast.

Beardall returned home from the hospital last Wednesday, and his wife, LaDonna, said he is healing well. He is expected to regain all function in his hands and to make a full recovery, though his wife said the extent of the damage to his lungs may not be fully known for years.

LaDonna Beardall said her husband has made two trips to the plant since coming home from the hospital, and will be healthy enough to return to work in two or three weeks. She said he is looking forward to getting back to work.

"He's not real excited about having to sit at home," LaDonna Beardall said. "He's a really active person to begin with, and then to have to sit at home and not be able to do a whole lot, it's kind of driving him nuts."

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or jduda@heraldextra.com.