An inspection in April revealed that the Inland Empire Plating facility is still substantially out of compliance with many different regulations that address storage, handling and disposal of hazardous materials. Plating operations use compounds and generate wastes with high concentrations of heavy metals and toxic chemicals. Many other metal platers and machine shops are managing their chemicals properly. Containers and tanks of hazardous chemicals have not been properly labeled or, in some cases, labeled at all.
Several containers have no tops.
Personnel have not been adequately trained in the safe handling of these chemicals, and emergency safety plans are inadequate. In some cases, dangerous wastes have not been properly disposed at special facilities designed to handle them. The company also failed to ship dangerous wastes off-site within the time frame required by law. Inspection schedules were not maintained, and required weekly inspections of the container storage areas were not performed. Required documentation was never submitted about what chemicals are at the site, what wastes are generated, what testing has been done, and what the results of that testing were.