| Material |
Amount |
| Abandoned drums |
2,136 gallons |
| Construction débris |
270,000 pounds |
| Diesel fuel |
5,025 gallons |
| Fuel Oil |
2,225 gallons |
| Gasoline |
3,215 gallons |
| Waste Oil |
2,062 gallons |
What are the penalties for improperly disposing of Hazardous Materials?
A person or company who has illegally disposed of hazardous materials or hazardous waste can be charged with a Class 1 Misdemeanor under the Fire Prevention Code, with a maximum penalty of $2,500.00 and one year in jail. Each 10 days of the offense can be considered a separate charge. Discharges of hazardous waste into waterways or groundwater can also be a violation of State and Federal regulations, which may be considered a felony.
A person or company who has illegally disposed of waste material (construction débris, solid waste) can be charged under City Code Sec. 31-10, which is a Class 1 Misdemeanor.
How can you stop environmental crimes?
There are steps each of us can take to avoid polluting our environment: - If you change the oil in your car, take the waste oil to one of the many places in the city where it can be disposed of properly without cost to you.
- Avoid raking leaves and solid waste into storm drains.
- When cleaning out you garage or shed of old paints, herbicides, and other household hazardous waste, bring this material to a SPSA transfer station on a collection day.
SPSA operates eight household hazardous waste collection facilities. These facilities are open designated days so residents may drop off household hazardous waste such as paint and pesticides, which are disposed of, free of charge to the homeowner in an environmentally responsible manner.
All facilities are open 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon on designated days (except where noted) at these locations:
Landstown Transfer Station:
1925 Concert Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23456
Open: 2nd Saturday and Last Friday monthly
Virginia Beach Landfill:
1991 Jake Sears Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23464
Open: Tuesday through Saturday from 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
For more information, call the 24-hour information line at (757) 424-4297.
Report Illegal Dumping or Suspected Environmental Crimes to the Environmental Crimes Hotline at 757-427-5000, or directly to the Fire Marshals Office.
Hazardous Materials Enforcement:
If your business stores hazardous material on site, you may need to placard the building with a NFPA 704 PLACARD as described below. This will enhance safety for employees as well as firefighters responding to a building where hazardous materials are located. If you have questions concerning this, please contact: Captain Terrence Tassone.
What is NFPA 704?
NFPA 704, Standard System for the Identification of the Hazards of Materials for Emergency Response, was developed as a manual by the Sectional Committee on Classification, Labeling and Properties of Flammable Liquids of the NFPA Committee on Flammable Liquids starting in 1952. Its first adoption as a guide occurred in 1961, with regular revisions being adopted through 1987. In 1990 it became an NFPA standard, and extensive quantitative health hazard rating criteria were introduced.
The purpose of the standard, as originally conceived, is to safeguard the lives of those individuals who respond to emergencies occurring in an industrial plant or storage location, or other location where relatively large quantities of chemicals are used, and where the hazards of materials are not readily apparent.
The standard provides a readily recognized, easily understood system for identifying specific hazards and their severity using spatial, visual, and numerical methods to describe in simple terms the relative hazards of a material. It addresses the health, flammability, instability, and related hazards that may be presented as short-term, acute exposures that are most likely to occur as a result of fire, spill, or similar emergency.
Should I Use This System In My Facility?
The 704 rating system is applicable to industrial, commercial, and institutional facilities that manufacture, process, use or store hazardous materials. It is important to note that the standard is not applicable to transportation or for use by the general public. The standard is also not applicable to chronic exposures or to non-emergency occupational exposure. The NFPA 704 system is often confused with the placarding required by the Department of Transportation for hazardous materials.
Why Should I Use The NFPA 704 Rating System?
The objectives of the system are:
- To provide an appropriate signal or alert for the protection of both public and private emergency response personnel
- To assist in planning for effective fire and emergency control operations, including clean up
- To assist all designated personnel, engineers, plant, and safety personnel in evaluating hazards
As a side note, it will assist you to take an inventory of the chemicals while considering their relative hazards. During your inventory for the rating, you may find that you wish to eliminate unnecessary or unusually dangerous chemicals.
How Is The Rating Displayed?
The system is characterized by the "diamond shape" that is actually a "square-on-point" shape. It identifies the hazards of a material and the degree of severity of the health, flammability and instability hazards. Hazard severity is indicated by a numerical rating that ranges from zero (0) indicating a minimal hazard, to four (4) indicating a severe hazard. The hazards are arranged spatially as follows: health at nine o'clock position, flammability at twelve o'clock position, and instability at three o' clock position. In addition to the spatial orientation that can be used to distinguish the hazards, they are also color-coded as follows: blue for health, red for flammability and yellow for instability. The six o'clock position on the symbol represents special hazards and has a white background. Examples of the special hazards in use are W, which indicates unusual reactivity with water and is a caution about the use of water in either fire fighting or spill control response, and OX, which indicates that the material is an oxidizer.
Who Can Apply This System?
While the system is basically simple in application, the hazard evaluation should be performed by persons who are technically competent and experienced in the interpretation of the hazard criteria as set forth in the standard. Often a qualified individual can determine the ratings in the facility using the data available from the manufacturer-supplied MSDSs. The technique to do the ratings is described in NFPA 704; the actual ratings for specific chemicals are not included in NFPA 704. The user is referred to two other NFPA documents that contain hazard property information, including the NFPA 704 hazard ratings: NFPA 49 Hazardous Chemicals Data; and NFPA 325 Guide to the Fire Hazard Properties of Flammable Liquids, Gases and Volatile Solids. If a rating is not available in these documents, the individual to rate their chemical of interest can use the NFPA 704 rating system. It should be noted that local conditions would have a bearing on the rating. For this reason, even if your chemical is listed in one of these sources, you may still want to double-check the rating to ensure our conditions do not affect the listed rating. |
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