State slaps Army with fine over hazardous waste

This story was published Thu, Apr 8, 1999

By Theresa Goffredo
Herald Oregon bureau

HERMISTON - The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality on Wednesday handed the Army a $1,000 civil penalty for not properly labeling hazardous waste, then shipping it from the Umatilla Chemical Depot incinerator to Pennsylvania.

Army officials said Wednesday they have tightened their rules regarding hazardous waste and are including additional employee training and holding meetings with visiting contractors prior to starting projects.

The hazardous waste in question did not involve any chemical agents. It has since been properly disposed of.

The depot stores 3,717 tons of lethal aging nerve agent eight miles west of Hermiston. The incinerator is being built to destroy the chemical stockpile by 2005.

"Our top priorities are safety and environmental compliance," said Lt. Col. Martin Jacoby, depot commander. "If a mistake is made, we report it, fix it and do whatever it takes to prevent it from happening again. When depot workers discovered the containers had been transported, we reported the issue to Oregon DEQ as required."

The matter was reported by incinerator employees Nov. 20. State regulators took the reporting into account as they did the incinerator project's previously clean compliance record.

"The amount of the fine is based on the compliance record and this is the first civil penalty against the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility and that's why it's the lowest possible penalty it can be," said Misti McDowell, DEQ's public information officer in Hermiston.

McDowell said a violation of this type is not unique to the incinerator project and could be found at any construction site.

Still, McDowell said, "It's serious in the fact that we have hazardous waste management rules for a reason and people who are handling them should know what it is to properly dispose" of hazardous waste.

The Army received a shipment of 200 gallons of hydraulic fluid to use in machinery at the incinerator site, McDowell said. The fluid was emptied into a reservoir near the site, but it was later determined that the fluid did not meet the right specifications for the job and had to be returned, McDowell said.

However, the hydraulic fluid had been kept in a reservoir lined with a rust inhibitor. The inhibitor contaminated the hydraulic fluid by causing it to become ignitable. At that point, regulators considered the fluid a hazardous solid waste, McDowell said.

The fluid was not properly marked before it was shipped back to the manufacturer in Pennsylvania, McDowell said.

"It was a case of not all hands reaching each other," McDowell said.

The 200 gallons have since been incinerated at an approved landfill in Maryland by Safety Kleen Corp., said Mary Binder, the Army's public affairs officer.

 

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