Governor Gilmore Announces
Discovery of Medical Waste Dumping at
Charles City County Landfill
RICHMOND- Governor
Gilmore today announced that inspectors
from the Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ) discovered a truck
unloading medical waste from New York
City at the Charles City County landfill
Wednesday, as part of Operation Trashnet,
a three-day program of spot inspections
of trucks hauling solid waste.
"Waste Management
has shown a callous disregard for the
citizens of the Commonwealth of
Virginia," Governor Gilmore said.
"As Governor, I will not tolerate
this action. Yesterday's discovery serves
as a sobering reminder that the General
Assembly must cap solid waste deposits in
our landfills and develop regulations for
the transportation of solid waste by
truck this year."
Governor Jim Gilmore has
asked Attorney General Mark Earley to
seek an injunction in Charles City County
Circuit Court prohibiting Waste
Management Inc. from transporting any
more medical waste into Virginia, under a
maximum penalty of $25,000 fine per day
for each occurrence. Waste Management
owns the transfer station in Brooklyn
that was the source of the medical waste.
The company also operates the Charles
City landfill. This is the fourth
incident involving transport of
unauthorized medical waste into Virginia
by Waste Management.
DEQ officials have
evidence from the unauthorized load that
appears to be regulated medical waste,
including red-stained sheets with New
York hospital identification tags,
biohazard bags and needles. The medical
waste was removed from the landfill
Wednesday, transported under escort by
DEQ to a medical waste treatment facility
in Chesapeake, and examined this morning
by ten DEQ inspectors. DEQ anticipates
noting more than 20 violations in a
Notice of Violation to be issued shortly.
This would result in a civil penalty of
$500,000.
In view of the
seriousness of these violations, Governor
Gilmore also directed the Department of
Motor Vehicles (DMV) to explore the
lifting of Waste Management's credentials
to operate its trucks on Virginia's
roadways.
"DEQ will
investigate this situation thoroughly and
will vigorously pursue appropriate
enforcement actions," DEQ Director
Dennis H. Treacy said. "Our goals
are to protect the health of people who
may be exposed to unauthorized waste such
as this, to preserve the integrity of
Virginia's solid waste management system
and to alleviate our citizens' concerns
about medical waste."
DEQ issued a notice of
violation to the truck driver and is
investigating other possible violations
related to this incident and to a 1998
consent order against Waste Management
for earlier medical waste violations.
In November 1998, DEQ
issued a consent order against the
company for three other violations in
1997 and 1998. Yesterday's medical waste
came from the same Brooklyn transfer
station that was the source of
unauthorized medical waste transported
into Virginia in 1998.
As a result of that
enforcement action, Waste Management said
it was working with the New York health
care industry and state and local
agencies to properly segregate waste
types where they are generated. The
company said it had rerouted waste to
ensure that transfer stations shipping
solid waste to Virginia no longer accept
any waste material from New York health
care facilities.
The consent order
required Waste Management to pay a
$125,000 civil charge, of which $70,000
was paid to the Virginia Emergency
Environmental Response Fund to help with
cleanups of environmental emergencies. In
addition, $55,000 was used to produce two
training videos based on regulatory
requirements for regulated medical waste
generators and transporters, for use and
dissemination by DEQ.
When the medical waste
was discovered at Charles City on
Wednesday, the landfill staff responded
immediately and took steps to remove it
from the landfill. DEQ inspectors
witnessed the medical waste being
unloaded from the truck, and issued a
notice of violation to the driver.
This was the only serious
incident involving unauthorized waste
discovered during three days of
unannounced safety and environmental
inspections of trash-hauling trucks by
Virginia, seven other states and the
District of Columbia. State Police and
DEQ inspectors conducted random checks
this week at landfills in Amelia, Charles
City, King George and Sussex counties.
The House of Delegates
and the Senate have passed Governor
Gilmore's legislation, patroned by Sen.
Bill Bolling (R-Hanover) and Del. Kirk
Cox (R-Colonial Heights), that would
place a daily limit on the amount of
solid waste that a landfill can take and
empower DEQ to regulate and permit
transportation of waste by truck. The
Governor also strongly supports
legislation proposed by Del. Harvey
Morgan (R-Gloucester) that would increase
penalties for improper transportation and
disposal of medical waste.
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