THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995 TAG: 9512230377
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
A city police officer was waiting passively at a red light last week at the Campostella Bridge when a truck reeking of chemical fumes pulled up next to his cruiser.
The officer began asking questions. And he soon found 23,000 pounds of old military chemicals - including used jet and runway paint - stored in the back. A big hole had been cut in the side of the truck to let fumes escape.
The chance encounter led to the driver and his employer, HCE Inc. of Chesapeake, being charged with 28 violations of rules governing the transport of hazardous materials, according to the city's environmental crimes task force, which is handling the case.
In addition, a Norfolk business that was to receive the materials, W.O. Register, has been ordered to clear thousands of gallons of other paints and chemicals that it was storing in violation of city zoning and fire codes, said Ed Palaszewski, supervisor of inspections for the city fire marshal's office.
W.O. Register, which has no sign other than ``RECEIVING'' printed on its white concrete facade, at 411 Avory Ave., has until Jan. 13 to comply or face prosecution, Palaszewski said.
``Had we not bumped into that truck, who knows how long this would have gone on,'' he said.
Palaszewski said the city has become especially sensitive to the storage of hazardous chemicals in the wake of a fire at Fine Petroleum Co. this year that spewed toxics on surrounding homes.
Fine president Milton S. Fine was fined $12,500 in September by a Norfolk judge for not following local and federal protocol for storing and handling hazardous materials at his warehouse. In many cases, chemical drums were not marked, and officials still are determining what was kept there.
Like the Register case, the Fine case was investigated by a collection of city police, fire, engineering and legal officials organized as the Norfolk environmental crimes task force.
In addition, the federal Defense Criminal Investigative Service, an arm of the Department of Defense, is now checking how and when military chemicals were acquired by W.O. Register or HCE Inc., local officials said.
DCIS agents spent three hours last Wednesday at W.O. Register, looking through manifests and other records and interviewing the owner, William Register, officials said.
Register said Friday the problem stems from his ignorance of changes to city codes that tightened requirements for storing hazardous chemicals. The changes, he said, effectively made his building obsolete for storage.
``I'm going to sell these paints and get the hell out of the business,'' he said.
Register has hired crews to separate and remove the materials, kept mostly in black 55-gallon drums, in time to meet the January deadline. A Hampton paint company will accept them, Register said.
``There's been no spill, there's nothing life-threatening here,'' he said. ``I guess they have a reason for coming out here, though; a lot of people can be pretty careless with this stuff. But I'm cooperating with them. It's nothing serious.''
The case also offers a narrow window on a little-known cottage industry that buys, salvages and re-sells old military chemicals. Customers range from fishermen to large corporations, all interested in cheaper substitutes for virgin oils, greases, solvents and paints, officials say.
The U.S. government sells used hazardous chemicals through a catalog. An agency in Memphis, Tenn., called the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office accepts sealed bids from licensed buyers who read about available chemicals in the catalog, said Phil Stewart, an agency spokesman.
But Greg Orfield, an investigator with the Chesapeake Fire Marshal's Office, says the sales are not so simple. The materials are often sold on wood pallets, accompanied by other solvents and paints in a chemical mishmash. The cost: often between $5 and $50 per pallet.
Orfield said buyers will sort through their package, keeping what they want and discarding or storing the rest.
``It's an ongoing nuisance problem,'' he said. ``A lot of the stuff is not necessarily hazardous, but it's petroleum-based and it's a waste material. We end up finding it on the side of the road or stacked in some junkyard.''
The materials found in the back of the truck headed for W.O. Register were a virtual smorgasbord that included marine paint, epoxy, thinner, jet paint and runway paint, Palaszewski said.
The truck, he said, was not registered to handle such materials and lacked required paperwork and other transport stipulations .
``Hey, there's money to be made with this stuff,'' he said. ``In many cases, it's handled just fine. . . . But understand there's a lot of rules and regulations to be followed. And sometimes it's easier to try to cut corners.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color map
KEYWORDS: HAZARDOUS MATERIAL by CNB