DEQ issues $32,000 penalty to Waste Management for asbestos violations
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has issued a $32,000 civil penalty to Waste Management of Oregon, Inc., for openly accumulating asbestos-containing waste material and for failing to provide an asbestos waste shipment record to a waste disposal site. On Jan. 9, 2017, Waste Management transported a drop box containing renovation debris from a residential property in Milwaukie, OR to the Metro South Transfer Station in Oregon City, and emptied the debris onto the Transfer Station’s tipping floor. The debris included asbestos-containing materials.
DEQ issued this penalty because the violations could have released asbestos fibers into the air and exposed workers and the public to asbestos. Asbestos is a danger to public health and a hazardous air contaminant for which there is no known safe level of exposure.
View the enforcement letter:
https://www.oregon.gov/deq/nr/100617wastemanage.pdf
Contact:
Matthew Van Sickle, Public Information Officer, DEQ, 503-229-6044 vansickle.matthew@deq.state.or.us
