Washington Demilitarization Company paid the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality a $20,000 penalty for violating its hazardous waste permit in April 2008. The U.S. Army Chemical Depot owns the facility.

Steve Potts, DEQ Chemical Demilitarization Program, said on April 19, 2008, personnel at the facility in Hermiston conducted maintenance activities and discovered high levels of moisture in the flue gas stream. The moisture affected required monitoring of the facility’s common emissions stack. To protect public health and the environment, the facility must shut down incineration systems if required monitoring systems are not operating properly.The facility should have halted hazardous waste procssing until the status of the stack monitoring could be determined.

Washington Demilitarization Company violated its hazardous waste permit by feeding hazardous waste to two incinerators that exhaust to the common stack while required monitoring instruments failed to operate properly, said Potts.This self-reported violation was corrected and procedures to enusre that chemical agent is sufficiently treated and the emission from the common stack are within safe limits are in place.