SE Bend Recycler Finds Itself With 100s of Chemicals

A federal-state hazardous material team was wrapping up identification, packaging and clean-up work Thursday at a southeast Bend recycling business that unknowingly bought hundreds of unlabeled chemicals someone improperly left stored at a nearby mini-storage business, officials said.

Pakit Liquidators at 903 SE Armour St. contacted authorities when the chemicals, apparently from an old research lab of some sort, were found among items the firm bought when Clark?s Storage, a Ninth Street mini-storage business, sold off the items in two storage units whose leases expired due to unpaid rent, said Brian Allen, a hazardous waste compliance inspector with the state Department of Environment Quality in Bend.

“They brought the equipment, books, everything over to their site,” Allen said. The Pakit workers began going through the materials on Sunday, March 4 and ?noticed they had acquired some chemicals,? so they contacted Bend police, who in turn put them in touch with the Oregon Emergency Response System, Allen said.

That led to a quick assessment and a recommendation to have SMAF Environmental, a contractor on hazardous waste issues, check out the materials, which Allen said had been left in about 25 storage containers of the type one can buy at department stores.

Some were in test tube-sized ampules, he said, and others in the small plastic containers cat litter commonly is sold in. Some of the substances needed to be immediately re-packaged for safe storage pending further research, Allen said.

The DEQ did its initial inspection of the materials the next day, March 5, and contacted Bend?s fire marshal and a battalion chief to look over the wide variety of substances, some in containers that had been commingled, Allen said.

?Our concern was making sure they were properly handled and disposed of,? the DEQ official said.

The variety of materials and issues were significant enough that the DEQ called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take a lead role, and it brought personnel from Portland and Seattle, who arrived on-scene this past Monday to put together a health and safety plan.

For the first week, Pakit Liquidators had been open ?off and on? during the work, with employees monitoring the locked, well-ventilated area to make sure no one had unauthorized access, Allen said. He added that both the mini-storage business and Pakit were fully cooperative with officials’ efforts to keep the materials safe and figure out what they were.

When the EPA and its contracted crews arrived early this week, Pakit Liquidators was closed as a precaution and people working in ?haz-mat? suits prompted a few questions and concerns from neighboring businesses and passers-by. In fact, Allen said, a portable laboratory was set up on scene, since tests were needed to determine just what some of the chemicals were.

Allen said the final materials were to be packed and off the premises Thursday evening, so Pakit should be able to reopen Friday; attempts to call Pakit officials Thursday for further information were unsuccessful.

?We do not believe there?s been any harm or releases that would be of concern to the public,? Allen said, calling the steps taken purely precautionary.

While the list of materials was still being finalized, Allen said there were ?hundreds of different chemicals,? including combinations apparently created by the laboratory for their own purposes.

?They (the EPA) have not said they uncovered anything out of the ordinary,? he said. ?So far, they?ve been normal, lab-type chemicals. They were just mis-managed, and placed in containers not proper? for safe storage.

One example Allen mentioned was small amounts of hydrofluoric acid, used in numerous industries, especially the semiconductor industry, which can, in certain conditions, create fumes.

Another chemical found among the others: THF, an abbreviation for tetrahydrofuran, which ?if it was shock-sensitive, was one of those things that could (result in) a mini-explosion,? Allen said. But the material was stable and ?turned out to be safe in its current situation.?

The EPA also is helping the DEQ trace the storage unit?s records to see who left the chemicals there. The responsible parties could face not only civil enforcement action and hefty fines, he said, but a bill for the haz-mat team?s work to identify and safely repackage the chemicals for transport and disposal ? mostly likely by incineration, Allen said.

?Abandoned hazardous waste is (a) very serious? matter, he said.

While the investigation is not complete, Allen surmised the chemicals could have come from a research lab ?that for whatever reason had lost funding, was unable to continue doing proper business, including proper disposal.?

Whatever the reason for abandoning the substances in a storage unit, Allen said it was the wrong thing to do.

?We prefer to be called first,? he said, to help a business or individual take the right, safe steps to dispose of such chemicals.