Investigators Find Hazardous Waste Violations at ABC Labs

Analytical Bio-Chemistry Laboratories has agreed to pay a $19,040 civil penalty to settle allegations that it violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) related to the storage and handling of hazardous waste at each facility.

The settlement comes after the EPA Region 7 conducted compliance evaluation inspections at ABC Labs’ two facilities in Columbia, Missouri, in April 2012.

ABC Labs’ Discovery Drive facility is a contract laboratory involved in pharmaceutical and agricultural product development, while the ABC Lane facility is a contract laboratory that serves agri-chemical, pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, and animal health industries. Both facilities are classified as large quantity generators (generating 1,000 kg of hazardous waste per month), and as small quantity handlers of universal waste (accumulating less than 5,000 kilograms of universal waste at any time). In addition, the facility is a used oil generator. All of these generator categories subject ABC Labs to regulation under RCRA.

According to an administrative consent agreement filed by EPA Region 7 in Lenexa, Kansas, each of ABC Labs’ facilities operated as treatment, storage or disposal facilities without a RCRA permit by failing to comply with the generator requirements of the regulation.

Specifically, the requirements ABC Labs failed to perform include conducting weekly hazardous waste inspections, listing portions of the emergency coordinator’s contact information in the contingency plan, and training the program director in hazardous waste management procedures, among others.

By agreeing to the settlement with EPA, ABC Labs has certified that it is now in compliance with all requirements of RCRA and its implementing regulations.

Last month, in a much larger hazardous waste settlement, Safeway agreed to pay $9.87 million to 41 California counties and cities for illegally disposing of household chemicals and medicines from more than 500 stores and distribution centers over a period of seven years.