Saturday, April 18, 2009

EPA executes a warrant

All I can say is Wow! I've worked with hazardous materials for over 18 years. In that time I've seen the EPA on site maybe once or twice and that was just to check if all the paperwork was in order and see that all proceedures were being done correctly. It usually works something like this. They come in and check your paperwork. If that is in order they leave. If something is out of order they start checking more closely. At the very worse the supervisor would get a verbal warning. If it was a minor violation a written warning is given and a set time period to correct the problem. If they find some obvious violation or something that would endanger the public they could issue a fine. Fines as I vagely remember go from $500 and go up exponentially. They go from $1000 then $10,000 then $100,000. For them to bring in a criminal investigation team is exceptional. Either somebody blew the whistle on them or their paperwork was so poorly done that it was a tip off. I just wonder if I'll be seeing videos of their raid at my next Haz Mat recertification class.

EPA

I'd say we'll be seeing more of these raids as the EPA gets funding increases and more staffing.

6 comments:

jmsjoin said...

All natural dog treats, I wonder what they did?

BBC said...

If everyone cared we wouldn't need the EPA.

Tom Harper said...

That's great news. You can tell there's a new sheriff. Sounds like the EPA is going back to its original job -- protecting the environment -- instead of protecting Big Business from those wacky environmentalists.

Anonymous said...

After 36 years on the fire department, Joe has breathed in more noxious and hazardous material than most people. Then the standards changed and demanded they wear oxygen masks. We despise the movies like Backdraft that shows firemen racing through burning buildings without a mask. Yeah, we want to see their faces, but that was a good move on Osha's part.

Hidy from Hernando!

Demeur said...

Actually Dana I've been in Haz Mat for over eighteen years and we still have idiots who go in without their masks. Oh well I guess it's just the thinning of the gene pool.

Anonymous said...

Genial brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you for your information.