On March 8, I posted a press report on a hazardous waste situation at the University of Washington. Here is a statement from the Director of the Environmental Health and Safety that clarifies some of the points left dangling in the newspaper story. - Ralph From: kav**At_Symbol_Here**U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: Re: [CSHEMA-L] University of Washington Hazardouse Waste Incident Date: March 30, 2007 9:23:15 PM EDT (CA) To: CSHEMA-L**At_Symbol_Here**LISTS.UMN.EDU Over the past several weeks there have been many comments about the University of Washington and its hazardous waste program because of an extremely unfortunate incident involving one of our faculty members. While I can't reveal the full story or the final outcome of the incident, there are a couple of things that I do need to say. First, the UW has a well established and excellent hazardous chemical waste management program. We safely manage approximately 200 tons of chemical hazardous waste each year from over 3500 chemical use areas. We have a successful, award winning pollution prevention program and are leaders in recycling hazardous materials. We have developed both in person and on-line training for University employees. We work closely with a University Chemical Hazards Advisory Committee (CHAC) that is chaired by a faculty member and has other faculty members in attendance. A number of our hazardous waste and chemical hazard issues are reviewed by that group. The University had inspections by the regulatory authorities in the last two years and had no major regulatory violations. I am extremely proud of the staff in EH&S who make it all possible. In the case under review they have done absolutely everything right and are held in the highest respect by the regulating community. As a director, I could not ask for a better team. Second, the routine hazardous waste disposal is paid for by the central budget, not by the researchers. There are two situations where the laboratory or department is asked to pay for certain costs before disposal occurs. One is the identification of "unknown" chemicals found in a laboratory; we usually charge approximately $80 per unknown to cover the costs of the analysis. The other is the management of outdated peroxide forming chemicals that are too dangerous for the laboratory staff to manage. A visit from a contractor to stabilize the chemicals costs about $5000 and involves the coordination of the UW Police Department and the Seattle Fire Department and requires a City of Seattle Reactive Stabilization permit. We work closely with the researcher/laboratory manager in preparing for these visits. We try to help the labs and minimize costs by keeping a list of these chemicals found in laboratories throughout the campus and scheduling the contractor to come once or twice a year to stabilize all the chemicals on the list. This coordinated effort usually decreases the cost to less than $500 per container, depending on the number of containers being handled. This approach has been in place for many years and ordinarily works well. Lastly, the UW has a long standing Peroxide Management Protocol that allows researchers to test for and stabilize peroxides themselves, if it can be done safely. This guidance is posted on our website at http://www.ehs.washington.edu/form/epo/peroxideguidelines.pdf. In most cases the peroxide forming chemicals are tested, found to have peroxide concentrations less than 10 ppm, and once stablized are disposed of through the regular hazardous waste management stream at no charge. But if the chemical does not meet the safety criteria (i.e. is very old, shows signs of deterioration, has evaporated or has visible crystals present), it is determined that the chemical cannot be safely tested and treated by the researcher. In such a situation, the contractor is scheduled to test and stabilize the chemicals as described above. In the recent instance, EH&S was working with the Lab Manager on the proper management of 5 containers of outdated ethers. When the materials were discovered missing, the University self-reported the situation to the Washington State Department of Ecology and EPA. This is consistent with the long standing commitment to compliance that exemplifies the University of Washington. For now, that's about all I can say, but I hope I have answered some of your questions about our program and this incident. Feel free to give me a call. Karen VanDusen, Director Environmental Health and Safety University of Washington 206-616-4146
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