ADEM cites incinerator for 12 violations of
permit, agency rules
Last Updated:April
20. 2007 3:29PM
Published:
April 20. 2007 3:29PM
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has cited Anniston's
chemical weapons incinerator for 12 violations of its operating permits
and ADEM rules.
The
state agency will consider the incinerator's history of violations and
other factors in determining whether to issue an order and any fines.
Officials with ADEM, the Army and Westinghouse Anniston, the
incinerator contractor, said all violations are considered serious.
No one's health was threatened by the mistakes that occurred in late
2006, officials said.
"They're
all serious," said Tim Garrett, the Army's project site manager at the
Anniston Chemical Demilitarization Facility, or ANCDF. "We want to
strive for perfection."
The Army and Westinghouse found and reported 10 of the 12 violations to
ADEM on their own.
Garrett
said workers would have discovered and reported the other two items,
but ADEM officials, who monitor the plant at all times, found them
first.
Workers corrected all the errors, he said, in some cases
immediately. Some involved improperly used equipment, inadequate
labeling of hazardous waste and destruction of waste that did not
follow rules to the letter.
"We are in the process of assessing
the situation and deciding what the most appropriate enforcement action
would be," ADEM spokesman Jerome Hand told The Anniston Star for a
story Friday.
That could include fines, he said.
ADEM notified incinerator officials it was considering the matter in a
letter dated April 12.
Incinerator officials revealed the violations and the letter to The
Star in a meeting with editors Wednesday.
Hand said ADEM fined Westinghouse $7,500 in August 2004 for 10
violations.