Federal Agency Admits Mistake, Will Pay Fine

A federal agency hit with $120,000 in fines for violating state hazardous-waste laws will not challenge the penalty.

“We done wrong and are paying the price for it,” said spokesman Brian Gorman of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We didn’t follow proper procedures. These chemicals need to be disposed of and disposed of safely.”

The state Department of Ecology cited the Commerce Department agency for illegally transporting and improperly storing hazardous wastes.

The wastes, which included potentially explosive chemicals, were moved through residential neighborhoods and commercial areas near the University of Washington. NOAA also failed to properly separate more than 3,000 containers of waste chemicals and identify the wastes.

“There was a danger of fire or an explosion on busy Seattle streets or at the NOAA site,” Ecology Director Mary Riveland said in a statement Tuesday. “People could have been killed or seriously injured by the dangerous mixture of 2,000 chemicals.”

NOAA is reviewing ways to reduce the amount of chemical waste it creates and improve hazardous-waste training for its employees.

As a result of the Washington state probe, NOAA will inspect all of its labs nationwide to make sure chemicals are properly handled, stored and disposed of, Gorman said.

The violations occurred when NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service office here collected 3,100 containers of dangerous wastes from agency labs in May 1994.

Over the next two months, the wastes were transported in about 50 vehicle trips to a NOAA storage shed a couple miles away. The route snakes along residential neighborhoods and near Children’s Hospital.

The wastes were stored there for six months while NOAA made arrangements to take them to permanent out-of-state disposal sites.