The Environmental Protection Agency finished its investigation of alleged Chemistry department chemical management violations this week.
The EPA now has a month to compile a report detailing the results of the investigation, said Ralph Allen, University director of environmental health and safety.
The investigation comes in the face of the EPA's new movement to strengthen educational institutions' adherence to safety standards.
Specifically, Allen said containers weren't being labeled correctly or the lids weren't kept closed.
The process the department uses to dispose of waste first involves collecting waste from the various labs and storing it in a central location. From there, the waste is sent out to the proper waste disposal facilities.
The alleged violations happened in a number of teaching labs, including the organic chemistry lab, Allen said.
"The EPA has not specifically looked at an institution like U.Va. before," he said.
He added that the University is a special organization that produces over 500,000 pounds of waste annually - a large amount.
EPA Region III Director Samantha Fairchild spoke in Washington, D.C., earlier this summer, discussing the environmental practices of higher education institutions.
In that speech, she detailed the need to focus on higher education institutions and their effects on the environment.
Colleges and other research facilities traditionally are not scrutinized as potential environmental regulation violators and thus may not understand these regulations fully, Fairchild said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily.
As a result, it becomes necessary to monitor and further educate that group, she said.
Fairchild's office has concentrated on the campaign by visiting several higher education institutions, talking directly to university administrators and also taking radio and television spots.
Allen said he thinks the University's alleged chemical disposal violations may be blown out of proportion.
"When it gets magnified, it seems to the public to be a large problem," Allen said.
Violations that may not necessarily result in harm to the environment, such as not labeling a lid correctly, still get blown up.
Fairchild declined to comment on the specifics of the University's situation, but stated the need to follow regulations in all cases.
"The rules are there for a reason," she said.
The system is important to ensuring the safety of the environment, she added.
Fairchild declined to comment about potential penalties, but said resolving the problem was most important.
"Right now, we're concentrating on getting the problem resolved and keeping it from happening again," said Bill Hayden, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson.
The DEQ assisted the EPA in the investigations.
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