The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality fined the Washington Demilitarization Co. for a pair of incidents last October at the Umatilla Chemical Disposal Facility, which destroys chemical weapons stockpiled since 1962.

The company operates four incinerators on site near Hermiston, Ore. The Army owns the chemical weapons incinerators, but Washington Demilitarization Co. operates them.

The DEQ fined the company $3,900 for feeding hazardous waste into one of the liquid incinerators while settings on an automatic safety cutoff were improperly set and out of compliance with the permit, according to state officials.

The DEQ also fined Washington Demilitarization Co. $3,300 for allegedly taking an automatic air monitoring instrument at the plant offline for several minutes at the same time a second monitoring system also was offline. The permit allows only one of the two systems to be taken offline at the same time, according to the DEQ.

Washington Demilitarization Co. can either pay the fine or contest the findings and request a hearing before an administrative law judge.

The company could not be reached for comment.