AUBURN - A little bit of dye goes a long way.

A mysterious bright fluorescent green liquid seeped through the intersection of Fitch Avenue and South Street in Auburn Friday afternoon, prompting an anonymous caller, thinking it was antifreeze, to alert the Auburn Fire Department at 1:35 p.m.

The substance was a trace dye used by the city as well as private contractors to test for leaks in pipes or to check water flow, according to Auburn Fire Department assistant chief J. Martin Corcoran.

“There's a dye that they put in the water which apparently fell off of one of the city's trucks,” Corcoran said, although he couldn't verify the actual source. “There's no hazard, no toxicity. It comes in bottles, like a shampoo bottle.”

Engine No. 2 responded to the call, and Lt. Christopher Logue, a hazardous materials officer with the fire department, verified that the material was a trace dye.

“We've run into it a couple of times,” he said.

The dye is typically put into the beginning of a water source to determine the water's path and examine the water system.

“We found the crushed bottle buried under the snow,” Logue said. “It probably fell off a vehicle and just got crushed.” He speculated that the vehicle might have been on Fitch Avenue and turned onto South Street since most of the substance was found on Fitch Avenue.

Excessive sleet and rain sped the flow of the green gunk onto South Street.

Mark Fritz, captain of the HAZMAT team, also came to the scene to provide a second opinion.

Logue said if the team hadn't found the bottle and verified it as the source of the dye, they would have had to call in the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Albert Cockrell, supervisor of sewer maintenance for the city of Auburn, was also on the scene to help confirm what the liquid was.

“A lot of people think it's antifreeze,” Cockrell said, which is one reason why the fire department gets calls from individuals worried about toxicity.

Hel said besides the city, contractors, plumbers, and those who test septic systems use this non-toxic tracing dye, often sold under the popular brand NORLAB, Inc.

“You can buy it from a lot of different places,” he said. “When we dye test someone's sewer line, we put one ounce into the toilet bowl and check for leaks at the manholes.”

Cockrell said about a year ago the high school was doing a dye test that spilled into the Owasco outlet and caused some alarm.

“If we do a dye test and it doesn't show up where we expected, it could show up later somewhere else,” he said. The dye will dissipate without harming any fish or wildlife.

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-3511 ext. 238 or kathleen.barran@lee.net