U.S. Navy Photo by Doug Davant All hazardous materials at NSF Dahlgren are handled by Gary Bowling (left) and Chris Goddard.

‘‘We handle all hazardous materials here on base except those which might have special significance (warfare items),” said Goddard. ‘‘And we support the Branch Medical Clinic (with non-biological items) as well as Chem-Bio here with their hazardous materials needs. There is no program that’s too small or too large involving hazardous materials that we are not involved with in some way.”

Goddard said the total amount of hazardous waste last year was almost 87,000 pounds. The major producer of hazardous waste at NSF Dahlgren is the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, he said, explaining that its wide variety of warfare tasks in supporting the Navy’s warfighters with research, development, testing and evaluation of weaponry naturally lends itself to being both a consumer and producer of hazardous material.

‘‘A lot of the types of waste items we get are from (NSWCDD) labs,” he said. ‘‘We get a lot of batteries, solvents...stuff such as that.”

Currently, all hazardous waste is disposed of through the Defense Reutilization Management Office (DRMO) in Richmond and the Navy is charged a price for the disposal.

However, before hazardous waste goes to DRMO it is evaluated for recycling purposes at the Building 1425 facility where Goddard and Bowling work. And batteries, even the tiny kind, are recycled and therefore producing the savings that the Navy relies upon.

‘‘All hazardous materials shipped onto the facility (except cylinders) are checked through here before they get distributed, too,” said Bowling. He listed hazardous materials as anything that could be ‘‘harmful in some way” to human health or the environment, or requires a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). He said he processes an average of 400 to 500 items a month.

‘‘Most people don’t realize that a can of paint can be hazardous material if it isn’t the water-based latex kind,” he noted, adding, ‘‘that Dahlgren uses a lot of paint.” Items such as bleach, film, solvents and oil are also considered to be hazardous materials.

‘‘It is important that people understand about hazardous materials and waste,” Goddard added. ‘‘It is illegal to toss hazardous materials just any place, they must be disposed of properly ... they must come through here.”

There is a custody chain for handling the materials and both men are involved.

Bowling and Goddard, both contractors, were required to go through special training programs by their Global Secure contractor company to qualify as hazardous material handlers. The pair came to Dahlgren from Patuxent River Naval Air Base and were hired by James Pinto of Naval Support Activity South Potomac.