An engineering technician synthesizes lead particles to investigate lead corrosion at the Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center Lab in Cincinnati, to help develop techniques to curb and stop the contamination of lead in drinking water. Image: EPA
By: FEDweek StaffDespite two directives that followed discoveries of issues with handling of hazardous wastes at EPA labs, the agency still has not verified that those labs are in compliance with safety requirements, an IG report has said.
It said that the EPA’s 27 labs generate hazards such as corrosive liquids such as acids, halogenated solvents, flammable gasses and liquids, broken lead-acid batteries, and waste that contains mercury—four of them deemed to be “large quantity generators.” The labs are subject to safety standards under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, it added.
It said that after the EPA’s internal Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance became aware of issues within the lab system, it sent memos in 2020 and 2021 emphasizing the need for compliance with those standards. The IG meanwhile issued reports in 2021 and 2022 raising those same concerns.
However, it said that as of the time of the most recent audit, the EPA had not inspected most labs to assure their compliance. “When we asked OECA what mechanisms were implemented to track and verify compliance with RCRA at EPA labs, none were identified,” the auditors said.
Further, the EPA has a self-policing policy “which aims to protect human health and the environment by encouraging regulated facilities to voluntarily discover and fix violations of environmental requirements.” However, during the audit period there were no such disclosures recorded in the internal system for reporting them, called eDisclosure. The IG found that “there was some confusion among the staff we spoke with about who should report violations in eDisclosure and what types of violations they should report.”
EPA management “agreed to implement mechanisms to verify EPA lab compliance with hazardous waste requirements and provided three corrective actions it will take,” the report said.
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