Inside Iowa State
March 17, 2000
EPA cracks down on universities
by Linda Charles
The Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has warned colleges and universities to tighten
their procedures for using and disposing
of hazardous wastes or pay the consequences.
The EPA and its regional offices, which traditionally have concentrated their resources on regulating industry, have begun to look more closely at universities and colleges.
Earlier this year, EPA's New England Regional Office announced an environmental initiative that included an "enforcement sweep of selected New England campuses." An EPA letter noted action seeking $300,000 in penalties from a state university in northern New England for alleged violations of hazardous waste laws.
EPA officials will not take ignorance of the rules as an excuse, said David Inyang, director of Iowa State's environmental health and safety department.
"Some sizeable penalties have been imposed on academic institutions for relatively minor, inadvertent violations," he said. It is those inadvertent violations that Inyang and his staff work to avoid.
"We've been anticipating initiatives such as this since 1994," Inyang said, "so this news is not a complete surprise to us."
While Iowa State has all the necessary environmental services in place, Inyang is concerned that many on campus are unaware or are not taking advantage of them. Environ- mental health and safety offers instructional classes to those who generate or manage hazardous wastes, but some of the classes have been canceled in the past due to poor attendance, he said.
Various campus functions generate hazardous wastes, Inyang said, from teaching and research to maintenance, demolition and construction. Hazardous wastes generated range from solvents and chemical reagents to cleaning agents, inks, paints, paint thinners and pesticides.
He added, the most commonly cited violations at academic institutions are:
- Unlabeled waste containers.
- Improperly labeled waste containers (for example
"acetone" instead of "waste acetone").
- Old, unusable chemicals stored in laboratories.
- Open waste containers.
- Waste moved to an unapproved storage area (waste must be
kept in a "satellite accumulation area at or near the point
of waste generation").
- Waste stored longer than 90 days.
- Emergency information not posted by telephones.
More information on EPA's environmental compliance initiative will be circulated on campus in the coming weeks. For hazardous waste management services or more information, contact environmental health and safety, 4-5359.
Coming in the March 31 issue of Inside: Hazardous waste services and classes on campus.
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