(APEX)
- One month after the EQ hazardous waste facility in Apex went up in
smoke, a government task force could rake an entire industry over the
coals.
"Even
Environmental Quality officials didn't know what was burning inside
that building until five days later," said Rob Thompson of N.C. Public
Interest Research Group. "That's unacceptable."
State regulators told the Governor's Task Force on Hazardous Materials
that they inspected EQ four times a month before it exploded in
October. The company and 10 other chemical-waste transfer stations in
North Carolina, report only once a year the kind of toxins they are
storing. State lawmakers and activists want daily inventories.
"This
is something that a department store can do on a routine basis. There's
no reason why these facilities cannot," said Hope Taylor-Guevara of the
group Clean Water for N.C.
Chemicals
inside classrooms may also come under a microscope after a fire that
started in a chemical storage room destroyed a high school near
Greensboro. There are currently no guidelines or funding designated to
clean out dangerous chemicals used in science class.
"They're
not stored compatibly," said retired high school chemistry teacher Dr.
Linda Stroud. "They're just put in boxes, and they sit in these
unventilated rooms with no heating, air conditioning whatsoever."
Some members of the task force warn that too much regulation could
force some haz-mat stations out of business, driving up the cost of
disposal for consumers.
But others hope people eventually can cut back on the chemicals which
fueled these toxic fires. Some advocates are pushing for ways to
replace hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives.
