Teecht. Kansas Metropolis Expanse Laboratory Possessor Convicted Of Illegally Storing Hazardous Waste

Lab Used Radioactive Material together with Solvents

Yesterday, a federal guess institute Ahmed el-Sherif, the owner, operator, together with radiations security officeholder for Beta Chem Laboratory inwards Lenexa, Kansas, guilty of illegally storing hazardous waste materials inwards violation of the Resource Conservation together with Recovery Act, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Justice Department’s Environment together with Natural Resources Division, U.S. Attorney Stephen R. McAllister for the District of Kansas, together with Jessica Taylor, Director of the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

The Honorable Julie A. Robinson issued a written verdict next the trial, which took house inwards Feb 2018. El-Sherif wanted, together with was permitted, to waive his correct to a jury trial together with the example was heard yesteryear Judge Robinson inwards what is known equally a “bench trial.”

El-Sherif, a trained pharmacist of Leawood, Kansas, started Beta Chem inwards the mid-1990s after having worked at several other radioactive synthesis laboratories. He used radioactive Carbon-14 together with solvents inwards his operation, nether license yesteryear the Kansas Department of Health together with Environment (KDHE). KDHE has assumed regulatory potency for these purposes from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission nether the Atomic Energy Act.

After Beta Chem was unable to supply KDHE alongside the required fiscal assurances regarding decommissioning the lab inwards the lawsuit that it was closed, KDHE inspected Beta Chem together with discovered extensive radioactive contamination throughout the laboratory, including around parts of the lab alongside levels then high their instruments could non accurately read them. The radioactive contamination extended to the laboratory furniture, the equipment, including refrigerators, together with containers of chemicals that were supposed to hold upward non-radioactive. The adjacent day, KDHE issued an Emergency Order of Suspension of License. 

EPA conducted a hazardous waste materials inspection the same month, together with afterwards notified el-Sherif of hazardous waste materials violations nether the Resource Conservation together with Recovery Act (RCRA). EPA also informed el-Sherif of his legal obligation to properly grapple hazardous waste materials nether RCRA. During the ensuing years, KDHE communicated alongside el-Sherif well-nigh the radioactive contamination at Beta Chem together with they entered into a consent understanding inwards which he agreed to come upward up alongside a computer program to remediate together with dispose of the radioactive waste. While he engaged a number of consultants, el-Sherif never took whatever activity to truly build clean upward the lab.

On Oct 4, 2013, after issuing an Emergency Order to Seize together with Secure Radioactive Materials, KDHE took command of Beta Chem together with secured the facility. EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, assisted yesteryear the Federal Bureau of Investigation, executed a search warrant at Beta Chem on Jan 22, 2014, where agents discovered numerous containers containing hazardous wastes together with contaminated alongside radiation. EPA determined at that topographic point to hold upward 1,138 containers at the lab, of which 886 had intact manufacturer labels alongside no handwriting, which showed many of those to hold upward hazardous. The other containers were plain tested for hazardous characteristics earlier beingness disposed of. In total, EPA determined at that topographic point to hold upward over ii hundred pounds of hazardous waste, around of which was acuate hazardous waste. All of the containers tested were radioactive, together with forty-five per centum of the contents tested were radioactive.

EPA’s Superfund computer program spent over $760,000 to withdraw together with dispose of the hazardous waste. 

“The world expects together with deserves that those inwards the line of piece of job concern of using unsafe radioactive materials produce then inwards compliance alongside law,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood for the Justice Department’s Environment together with Natural Resources Division. “This accused breached that trust, deliberately disobeyed the law, together with ignored requests yesteryear KDHE together with EPA to convey his laboratory into compliance alongside statutes together with regulations designed to protect Earth together with the environment.”

“For years, the accused knowingly stored hazardous waste materials alongside no reckon to the serious world wellness together with environmental dangers it posed,” said Special Agent inwards Charge of EPA’s criminal enforcement computer program for the EPA Regions roofing Kansas Jeff Martinez. “Even when told to halt his unsafe practice, Mr. el-Sherif continued to ignore the risks. Yesterday’s guilty verdict should ship a clear message that EPA volition manage accountable those who willfully violate the law.”

Acting Assistant Attorney General Wood together with U.S. Attorney McAllister thanked the U.S. EPA together with the FBI for their operate inwards this investigation. This example is beingness prosecuted yesteryear the Environmental Crimes Section of the Department of Justice.  Senior Counsel Krishna S. Dighe together with Trial Attorney John E. Arbab alongside the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section inwards Washington, D.C., aided yesteryear Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Mattivi, are inwards accuse of the prosecution.