Rarely is the Alabama Department of Environmental Management worthy of a complement. But the community owes some inspectors of that agency a big thank you for uncovering some seriously sorry goings on at a laboratory at the chemical weapons incinerator.A memo acquired by The Star shows that during a surprise inspection of the lab — run by a sub-contractor of Westinghouse, the builder of the facility — ADEM inspectors stumbled upon all manner of very troubling issues.
For example the inspectors were prompted to write: “These reports reflect a general attitude of lax management, and offer at least a hint of collusion between the laboratory branches … to prevent major discrepancies from seeing the light of day.”
Collusion between the lab branches? What is going on here? That’s bad enough, but read on and you find instances of containers holding hazardous materials being mislabeled or not labeled at all and an instance of hazardous materials being left in an unlocked facility, in direct violation of the rules.
The inspection came on the heels of a trial burn, when the facility destroyed harmless compounds in an effort to see how the incinerator would perform when the nerve agents will be destroyed.
In was, then, a good opportunity for everyone at the incinerator to practice. Apparently, however, the lab was treating this one like make-believe.
And that is totally unacceptable.
If these people can’t get it through their heads that this is a deadly serious business for the tens of thousands of people in our area then they do not need to be there. If Westinghouse or the Army needs to clean house over this one then they should do so.
This was an egregious example of shoddy lab work, and we do not care for a second that it was lab work that dealt with a trial burn, that it was not the real thing. It is real for us everyday.
Westinghouse should not tolerate such work and neither should the Army. Because our community has to know and believe that when the real thing starts that the lab and everything else at the incinerator is run in a safe, scientific manner.
This inexcusable mess up doesn’t do anything to contribute to our trust in the incinerator.
Do not let it happen again.
