Cañon City Daily Record  May 10, 2002

State cites Cotter with 16 violations
Alexa Hoffman
Record Staff Writer

A state inspection of the Cotter Corporation showed 16 violations of state regulations, according to a report prepared April 23 by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Four of the violations, covering airborne radioactivity, a failure to implement a program to keep radioactivity doses as low as possible, unacceptable soluble uranium intake, and lack of action when a urine test showed a higher-than acceptable level of uranium, were repeat violations, the report said.

Cotter was also cited for allowing a driver for United Parcel Service unescorted access to restricted areas of the mill.

Cotter, which processes uranium in a mill five miles south of Cañon City, has 30 days to remedy the violations, or face fines of up to $21,850.

"The number and type of violations identified in this inspection indicate a serious and substantial breakdown in the management oversight of this facility," the report stated.

"This Department is especially concerned that Cotter has failed to address radiation safety issues that have been identified by Cotter's internal review . . . by an independent auditor and by the Department. Further, Cotter often does not submit required documents on schedule," the report charged.

"If they don't correct (the violations) according to our civil penalties, we will institute proceedings for suspension, revocation or modification of their license," said Jake Jacobi, program manager for the Laboratory and Radiation Services Division of the CDPHE. However, "procedure is, when items of noncompliance are found, the agency is allowed to come into compliance."

Rich Ziegler, Cotter executive vice president and general manager, told the Daily Record this morning, "(The notice of violation) is bothersome to me, but it's not troublesome. This has been a discussion that we've had ongoing with the state . . . about the way we've been calculating. We hired (the auditing group) to help us improve our state, methods and calculations.

"There are 16 violations in the notice of violation, but if you take and combine them within the same areas, I come up with about eight," Ziegler said.

In addition to the 16 violations, there were also 18 "items of concern," which Jacobi defines as "things which are non-violation but are things we think could have an impact on the radiation safety program." The items of concern are often statements on possible methods to fix certain non-violations that fall under subheadings of violations.

For example, item "I" discusses shipping papers performed in non-standard format, and states that the "information in these . . . documents should be combined to produce a simplified Bill of Lading," which is similar to violation 11 citing deficiencies in labeling the shipping papers of outgoing packages.

"We're going though each and every item of concern and we're going to answer them," Ziegler said. "Some of them we agree with and some of them we don't — we'll answer accordingly.

"I think it'll be a matter of sitting down with the state . . . and we'll either have to convince them (with the items we don't agree with) or we'll have to follow their suggestions," Ziegler said.

Cotter must follow suggestions quickly, because the state performs frequent inspection, especially following a notice of violation, Jacobi said."We do inspections at least once a year," Jacobi said. "Each time we go down there, we put an emphasis on a different area." Despite the frequent inspections, some significant items are left unresolved, he said.

"There are some we still have to work through," Jacobi said, "but we didn't finish as part of the inspection."

"When a licensee has a significant number of compliance issues, and/or fails to correct safety issues previously identified, the basis for breakdown in safety is often the result of . . . (either) lack of management oversight, technical incompetence of radiation safety staff or insufficient staff to fulfill all safety requirements," the report stated.

The Radiation Services Division will be sending a representative within six months from the date of the letter to verify that "full compliance has been achieved."

While Cotter has received other Notices of Violation, "I don't believe we've ever had previous fines on Cotter," Jacobi said.

But Ziegler said Cotter was fined for site cleanup, "we were late filing a monthly or quarterly report — I don't remember which — and I think we were about two to three days late in filing the report," he said. "And within the RAP, there were stipulated penalties." According to Ziegler, this occurred "probably better than 10 years ago."

Colorado Citizens Against ToxicWaste is not willing to look past Cotter's present violations.

"This document is evidence that the Cotter Corporation continues to fail in protecting the public and its employees, just as it did in the past, as revealed in three court trials over the last two decades," said Sharyn Cunningham, co-president of CCAT. "This reaffirms our belief that such a corporation can not be trusted to safely handle and dispose of large quantities of radioactive and chemical waste from contaminated industrial sites. This reaffirms our belief that Cotter's self-monitoring, and the CDPHE's oversight of Cotter, is inadequate for the protection of Fremont County resident's health."

"We don't agree with that," Ziegler said. "We follow a tremendous amount of rules and regulations . . . there's always a disagreement in the way we calculate our data versus the way the state would like to see it. We're working towards more of a resolve."

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