A state-owned railroad let mercury-laced fluorescent lamps sit in open, unlabeled containers — and paid less to settle the federal violation than most Alaskans pay in a single month of rent.

Alaska Railroad’s Toxic Secret

How a Publicly Owned Railroad Treated Hazardous Waste Like a Housekeeping Problem — And Walked Away for Pocket Change

Source: EPA Docket No. RCRA-10-2025-0147 | Expedited Settlement Agreement and Final Order | Filed August 13, 2025

Five Violations, One Building, Zero Accountability

The Alaska Railroad Corporation operates a major maintenance and repair facility at 327 West Ship Creek Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska. Federal EPA inspectors walked in and found a facility that was, by the government’s own documentation, treating hazardous waste management like an optional afterthought.

The inspection turned up five distinct categories of federal violations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) — the federal law that governs how toxic and hazardous waste must be handled, stored, labeled, and tracked. These were spread across multiple buildings and shop areas throughout the facility.

What makes this particularly pointed: Alaska Railroad Corporation is state-owned. This is not some rogue private operator cutting corners for profit margin. This is a public institution — owned by the people of Alaska — running what federal regulators identified as a textbook noncompliance operation.

The Violations: A Room-by-Room Breakdown

The violation picture is comprehensive. The EPA found failures in identification, containment, labeling, time-limit compliance, and basic used oil management — all in the same facility, all at the same time. This was not one bad day. This was a systemic failure of environmental compliance culture.

The Non-Financial Ledger

What the penalty check cannot compensate for.

They Knew. They Just Didn’t Act.

The most damning detail in the EPA’s settlement document is also the simplest: the facility’s own environmental operations manager knew the waste was sitting there. When inspectors showed up and pointed at the pile of waste paint containers, lubricants, and mystery solvents, the facility representative Mr. Demario Jones confirmed those materials had arrived two weeks prior. He also confirmed he had made no hazardous waste determination. That is not an oversight. That is a choice.

Outside the same building, inspectors found a full 55-gallon drum labeled “PF solvent used” — a container the size of a small bathtub filled with a substance the facility rep admitted he could not identify. There was also a tote labeled simply “bad,” and a completely unlabeled blue container. Nobody knew what was in these containers. Nobody had taken steps to find out. These were sitting outside a building at a railroad facility in an urban Anchorage neighborhood, near one of the most ecologically sensitive states in the country.

Mercury Sitting in an Open Trash Can

Universal waste lamps — the fluorescent bulbs that contain mercury — require careful containment precisely because broken bulbs release mercury vapor, a neurotoxin. Federal law mandates these lamps stay in closed, structurally sound containers with specific labeling. At Alaska Railroad’s Anchorage facility, inspectors found the containers sitting open, two loose lamps balanced on top of a container, and one broken lamp discarded in a standard trash can. A trash can. The kind that gets emptied into a dumpster and sent to landfill.

The moment an inspector pointed this out, the facility representative closed the containers and placed the loose lamps inside. The violation was corrected in real time because a federal inspector was standing in the room. The obvious question is: what happens on every other day when no inspector is present? The answer, given what the EPA found on a routine inspection, is unsettling. The systemic conditions that produced one broken mercury lamp in a trash can are the same conditions that produced four other categories of federal violations across the same facility simultaneously.

Two Years of Battery Neglect — and Nobody Caught It

NiCad batteries contain cadmium, a heavy metal and known carcinogen. Lithium batteries carry fire and explosion risks if improperly stored. Federal law allows these “universal waste” batteries to accumulate for no longer than one year from the date they are generated. Alaska Railroad’s facility held containers of both NiCad and lithium batteries with an accumulation start date of March 20, 2023 — more than two years before the EPA inspection in 2025. This means Alaska Railroad’s internal compliance system failed to catch an expired hazardous materials deadline for over 730 days. No internal audit. No corrective action. No documentation of anyone noticing. The batteries sat.

Used Oil Everywhere, Labeled Nowhere

The used oil violations cover the most ground, literally. Across five separate operational areas — the Repair Shop, the Electric Rewind Shop, the Diesel Shop center aisle, the Diesel Shop Oil Filter Crushing area, and the 5K Oil Tank area — unlabeled used oil containers were the standard practice. Used oil can contain heavy metals, benzene, and other toxic compounds from engine combustion. The labeling requirement exists so that workers, emergency responders, and waste haulers know what they are handling. Alaska Railroad stripped that safety net from at least twelve individual containers across its facility, from buckets to jugs to a parts washer collection container.

Legal Receipts

Verbatim from the EPA’s official settlement document. Every word is on the record.

“A Facility representative, Mr. Demario Jones, stated that these materials arrived at the CAA two weeks ago and were waste, but he noted that he had yet to make a hazardous waste determination.” — EPA Docket No. RCRA-10-2025-0147, Page 2, describing the Boiler Plant Building 29 Central Accumulation Area inspection

“Mr. Jones stated that he believed one of these containers to be a mix of oil and water and another to be a mix of diesel and water. He was unsure what the ‘PF solvent’ was. Mr. Jones stated that he believed these materials to be wastes, but he noted that he had not yet made a hazardous waste determination.” — EPA Docket No. RCRA-10-2025-0147, Page 2, describing the Satellite Accumulation Area outside Boiler Plant Building 29

“EPA observed two waste universal waste lamps sitting out on top of a used lamps container and one broken lamp in a trash can. During the inspection, Mr. Demario Jones, closed the two containers of universal waste lamps and place the waste universal waste lamps in the designated universal waste containers.” — EPA Docket No. RCRA-10-2025-0147, Page 3, describing violations of 40 C.F.R. § 273.13(d)(1)

“EPA observed a container of waste NiCad batteries and a container of waste lithium batteries each with an accumulation start date of March 20, 2023. These two containers of universal waste batteries exceeded the accumulation time limit of one year.” — EPA Docket No. RCRA-10-2025-0147, Page 3, describing violations of 40 C.F.R. § 273.15(a)

“Respondent: (1) admits that Respondent is subject to RCRA and its implementing regulations; (2) admits that EPA has jurisdiction over Respondent and Respondent’s conduct as alleged herein; (3) neither admits nor denies the factual allegations contained herein; (4) consents to the assessment of this penalty.” — EPA Docket No. RCRA-10-2025-0147, Page 4, Paragraph 5 of the Settlement Agreement

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation

Alaska is one of the most ecologically sensitive environments on the planet. The Anchorage facility sits near Ship Creek, a waterway that runs through the heart of the city and supports Chinook salmon runs. Mercury from improperly stored and broken fluorescent lamps bioaccumulates in aquatic ecosystems — meaning even small releases compound up the food chain, from insects to fish to the birds and mammals (including humans) that eat them. The EPA found a broken mercury-containing lamp in a standard trash can at this facility. That lamp’s mercury does not disappear when the trash gets hauled away.

The unidentified “PF solvent used” in a full 55-gallon drum, the mystery containers labeled only “bad” or left completely unlabeled, and the confirmed mix of diesel and water in outdoor containers all represent potential groundwater contamination vectors. Because no hazardous waste determination was made, nobody tracked what these materials were or where they went. Without that determination, there is no legally mandated chain of custody, no record of disposal, and no accountability for what seeped into the ground, the drain, or the watershed.

The cadmium and lithium in the batteries that sat for over two years beyond the legal limit pose their own risks. Cadmium is a persistent heavy metal that accumulates in soil and groundwater. Lithium batteries held in improper conditions degrade over time and can leak electrolyte compounds. Over 730 days of untracked accumulation means 730 days during which the integrity of those containers was unverified and unreported.

Public Health

Alaska Railroad’s Anchorage facility employs workers. Those workers moved through the same Central Accumulation Area where open containers of mercury-laced lamps sat, where a broken lamp was dropped in a trash can, and where barrels of unidentified solvents occupied outdoor space. OSHA and RCRA overlap precisely because hazardous waste in the workplace is a worker safety issue. Unlabeled containers of used oil, mystery solvents, and cadmium-bearing batteries represent daily exposure risks for the people who work in those shops.

Mercury vapor from a broken fluorescent lamp is colorless and odorless. A worker emptying a trash can that contains a broken lamp has no warning and no protection. Used oil containing benzene — a known human carcinogen — splashes and drips in mechanical shops. When those containers carry no “Used Oil” label, the people responsible for safely disposing of them cannot make informed decisions about their own protection. Alaska Railroad removed that informed decision from at least a dozen containers across five shop areas.

Economic Inequality

The penalty settled here was $6,250 (roughly the equivalent of what an Alaska Railroad worker earning the state median wage makes in about five weeks). For the Alaska Railroad Corporation — a state-chartered enterprise operating critical infrastructure — this number is operationally invisible. It is the kind of expense that gets buried in a line item labeled “regulatory compliance costs” without a second thought. The fine carries no deterrent weight proportional to the scope of the violations.

Under the settlement terms, Alaska Railroad neither admits nor denies the factual allegations. This is a standard corporate settlement maneuver, but it carries a real-world consequence: there is no formal admission of wrongdoing that can be used in civil litigation by workers or community members who may have been harmed. The corporation pays the fine, closes the containers it should have closed years ago, and the legal record shows a settlement — not a conviction. The people who breathed the air in that building do not get a line in this document.