PeaceHealth St. Joseph’s penalized for violating dangerous waste laws
This story has been updated
PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center has been penalized for repeated violations of Washington’s dangerous waste laws.
The Bellingham hospital was fined $21,000 by the Washington Department of Ecology for past violations, the agency said in a news release.
An inspection from 2022 showed multiple violations related to “basic preventative measures,” the release stated. These measures included failure to properly train staff in waste management and emergency procedures, failure to inspect and document waste storage areas on a weekly basis and failure to submit required annual reports to the state.
“The Environmental Services team at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center handles (and has handled) dangerous waste according to all state regulations. What we regrettably failed to do over the course of several years is to document the storage of the waste appropriately,” Beverly Mayhew, marketing and communications director at PeaceHealth told The Bellingham Herald.
“Once determined to be out of compliance in early 2022, all documentation has been in order. We want to emphasize that at no time was dangerous medical waste a safety issue for the community or employees at the medical center,” Mayhew said.
PeaceHealth has 30 days to pay the penalty or appeal it to the state Pollution Control Hearing Board.
The medical center has a history of not complying with dangerous waste regulations, and received a similar penalty in 2018, according to the news release. St. Joseph’s has not established any sort of long-term system for handling dangerous waste, the state said.
Dangerous waste includes anything that is toxic, reactive, corrosive and/or ignitable. It can become a safety issue for people and the environment if not handled properly. It can even release toxic fumes and create explosions, according to the Department of Ecology.
This story was originally published October 31, 2023 at 11:56 AM.
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