Camp Pendleton Gigged for Violating Waste Rules : Safety: EPA cites Marine base for 11 infringements, which must be corrected within 30 to 60 days.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited Camp Pendleton on Monday for 11 violations of hazardous waste laws, including failure to properly label and store hazardous wastes, lack of permits and lack of emergency training for Marines who work around the toxins.

EPA inspectors discovered the alleged violations in July, just two months after Camp Pendleton officials had pledged in writing to correct numerous problems that the EPA had discovered in 1989 and 1990. Since making that pledge, the Marine base made some improvements, Dave Schmidt, an EPA spokesman, said, but had failed to address several shortcomings.

“They’ve been careless, and they haven’t cleaned up their act,” Schmidt said. “Not all these (violations) are big deals, but they all add up. It just shows that they’ve not been paying attention to the rules--that they haven’t read the rules, for that matter.”

The EPA did not levy a fine, Schmidt said, because the federal government has long held that military bases and other federal facilities are exempt from fines associated with solid- and hazardous-waste laws. Had a civilian facility been cited for 11 violations, he said, the fine would have been “very substantial.”

Instead, the EPA issued a notice of noncompliance, which requires the base to correct all violations, to train hazardous-waste workers and to submit plans to prevent future violations--all within 30 to 60 days.

Lt. Kevin Bentley, a spokesman for Camp Pendleton, said Marine officials are investigating the complaints and will work with the EPA to fix them.

“We’ve been working really hard for quite some time to keep Camp Pendleton clean and to adhere to any environmental regulations. We really are making great efforts to adhere to the law,” he said. “If there is a violation, they’re going to work to correct it.”

Failure to provide worker training was among the violations the EPA found in July at one of the base’s toxic storage yards, called the Morale, Welfare and Recreation Hazardous Waste Accumulation Area, Schmidt said. He said inspectors found three unsupervised Marines removing residue from the outside of plastic barrels who had not received any training and were unfamiliar with emergency procedures.

Moreover, had the men known what to do in an emergency, they were ill-equipped to handle one: another violation noted the base’s failure to maintain fire protection and decontamination equipment.

“Specifically, there was an inoperable emergency eye wash at the storage building and a fire extinguisher with no inspection tag,” Schmidt said.

Five-gallon waste containers were discovered stacked four-high, which resulted in a citation for “failure to store containers of hazardous waste in a manner to prevent rupture.” Other containers were not sealed properly and still others were unlabeled.

The Marine base was also cited for failure to conduct inspections, for storage of hazardous waste without a permit and for failure to separate incompatible wastes during storage.

“They had stored numerous containers of acid, ignitable and unknown wastes together,” Schmidt said. “And their entire storage area was not permitted because they hadn’t filed a permit application with us.”

Schmidt said of all the wastes currently generated at the base, only one chemical was specifically singled out as being stored improperly--a hydrocarbon liquid used as a solvent. More alarming than the toxicity of the stored material, he said, was the lack of labeling that created a potentially dangerous situation.

“The emphasis here is not so much on the substances that were involved but that the proper procedures weren’t followed,” he said. “Unlabeled hazardous waste--that’s the kind of thing that’s likely to create an abandoned dump if you keep doing it for a long period of time. This is a preventive action that’s being taken.”

Jeff Zelikson, director of hazardous waste management for EPA’s western regional office, said the notice of noncompliance was intended to show that military bases, while not subject to fines, are not above the law.

“Military bases are subject to the same hazardous waste regulations as other government agencies and private industry,” he said in a statement. “Compliance with these regulations is mandatory to protect public health and the environment.”

Schmidt acknowledged that the notice “may not be as effective as a fine” at prompting action, but he said his office expected the problems to be fixed on schedule.

“What we can do here is take this up to a higher level if the base commander and base officials don’t comply,” he said. “I understand that it is very rare for the problem not to be dealt with at this level.”

In an attempt to give regulatory agencies more leverage, some lawmakers have proposed that military bases and other federal facilities should no longer be immune from fines. Under a bill now pending before the House of Representatives, the federal government would be subject to the same penalties as civilian polluters.

With this in mind, the California Environmental Protection Agency in September recommended a $204,800 penalty against the North Island Naval Air Station, which Cal-EPA officials said had improperly stored and labeled toxic and radioactive waste. The hefty fine was one of the largest ever proposed by the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Though aware that the Navy was unlikely to pay the penalty under current law, Cal-EPA Secretary James M. Strock said in September that the fine was intended to show that the Navy cannot expect special treatment when it violates environmental regulations.

State officials hope that, if the proposed federal legislation aimed at what some call “the environmental double standard” is approved, such waste-related fines would become collectible.